


Boys Don't Cry

by flaminhotthanksgiving



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1980s, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward First Times, But it's also cute and light hearted I PROMISE, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Football Player Levi, HIV/AIDS, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Horny Teenagers, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, Literally so much angst you guys, M/M, Marijuana, Mutual Pining, Nerd Erwin Smith, Physical Abuse, Punk Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Underage Drinking, sexual assault tw, suicide TW
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 18:07:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11995173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaminhotthanksgiving/pseuds/flaminhotthanksgiving
Summary: [[REPOST/I REMADE MY ACCOUNT: YES, IT'S BACK!]]Erwin Smith is a nerdy, asthmatic ray of sunshine. Levi is the brooding crossbreed between a goth and a jock. After a rough first encounter, Erwin is determined to befriend him whether he likes it or not. Levi doesn't think it'll work. It does.Some weird shit happened in the 80's, man.





	1. Heat of the Moment

**Author's Note:**

> YO YO YO YO so uuuUUuhuHhhHHHHHHH some. stuff. happened in my life. a few weeks ago but that doesnt matter now because BOYS DON'T CRY IS BACK, BABY! tell ya friends. im in college now so idk how often it'll be updating. but it's here for your reading pleasure. thanxxxxxx
> 
> ps listen to my FUCKING levi playlist its Very Good https://open.spotify.com/user/12152029028/playlist/5EWNcfrqs20WlSH0WyHRf7
> 
> ALSO follow me on tumblr @lochnessmonster !

_You spent summers here all the time as a kid! You know where the school is._

Erwin’s palms are sweaty against the steering wheel of his truck.

_Okay, mom, that’s true, but a little more moral support would have helped._

Erwin isn’t generally the type to get nervous—he’s seen his fair share of gruesome situations and handled them well, but there’s a nagging feeling in his gut that’s been there since the night before. His glasses begin to slide down the bridge of his nose; he’s sweating, not because he’s anxious, but because the A/C in his truck decided to die a week prior. He goes through a mental checklist of all the things he’s supposed to bring: notebooks, pens, pencils, lunch money…inhaler. He presses his glasses back with one finger and exhales, assuring himself that everything will go smoothly if he keeps quiet, doesn’t piss anybody off, and stays in the closet.

The year is 1987. It’s August, and the sky is aggressively blue. As Erwin pulls into the school parking lot he sees an old friend—Mike, who he’s known from many years of childhood summer shenanigans. For a brief instance Erwin thinks that Mike might not remember him, but the thought evaporates as quickly as it appeared. Of course Mike would remember. How could he  _forget?_

Mike is standing by the front entrance, leaning one foot against the wall, hand over his eyebrows as if he’s searching for something. He is—the moment Erwin steps out of his truck, Mike waves him down and calls his name. Erwin isn’t difficult to spot; he towers over nearly everyone there. He raises his hand to wave back, almost shyly, and cracks a smile. A pair of girls glance back at him as they pass by. They flash coy, mischievous grins, and Erwin can’t tell if they’re attracted to him or making fun of him. He smiles back at them anyways.

“Holy shit, E, you got tall _,”_ Mike says as Erwin approaches him.

Erwin laughs awkwardly, adjusting his glasses, “Ha—I guess so. You did too, Mikey. You’re taller than me.”

“Whatever, whatever. Details. C’mon, I’ll show you around,” he says nonchalantly, leading Erwin in through the doors and into the bustling hallway. “You know, your mom called our house last week and asked if I could be your sidekick for the day since you guys were moving here for good. I guess she didn’t tell you that though, she probably forgot. But, like,  _dude_ , I gotta be honest, I’m totally psyched about this.”

“You are?”

“No duh man, summers with you were the shit. People are gonna love you here, too. They’ve heard my stories, so they kinda already know who you are anyways.”

“Oh. Well, I guess that’s good,” Erwin says, slightly distracted. Many, many things are happening around him all at once—not that he’s having any trouble processing the situation, but he is a tad bit overwhelmed. He doesn’t like the feeling; he isn’t used to it. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his acid wash jeans, he observes the teenage chaos buzzing throughout the hallway. Every voice, every giggle, every playful insult echoes off the linoleum floor and the long stretches of metal lockers.

“Look, I’ve got a friend I want you to meet already,” Mike grins, leading Erwin past a congregation of jocks chugging sports drinks and showing off their letters to each other. A girl with short, platinum blonde hair stands leaning against a locker, a book open in one hand, glaring over the pages and watching everyone in the hallway.

“Nanaba!” Mike calls.

Her grey-blue eyes suddenly dart in their direction. A smirk spreads across her thin lips, and she shuts her book with a strange intensity before waving at both of them.

“God, Mike, you really need to shave. The mustache isn’t cool,” she teases, but something about her tone rings facetious.

“Oh, piss off _._ Erwin, this is Nanaba. Nanaba, this is Erwin. Erwin’s family just moved down from Rosewall. We knew each other when we were kids so I’m showin’ him the ropes today,” Mike introduces.

“Rosewall, huh? I’ve driven through there once. Why’d you move down here to this dump if you used to live up there?” She asks, brushing her bangs away from her face. The air around her  _bleeds_ a biting, playful coolness; Erwin can practically feel her making snap judgements of him based on every single one of his movements. She knows, with acute severity, that she has an unspoken power over him. Yet Erwin can’t bring himself to dislike her for it.

Erwin shrugs and smiles, “My mom said she wanted a change of pace. She technically retired last year and she wanted to get out of WASP territory for good. She likes it a lot better out in the countryside.”

“Well, no offense Mister Polo Shirt, but I think you brought a little bit of WASP with you,” Nanaba snickers, tugging lightly on Erwin’s collar.

“Nanaba, come on,” Mike groans, but Erwin takes it in stride.

“Man, I knew I shouldn’t have gone with this shirt. But I guess I can’t do anything about it now,” Erwin gives a small, genuine laugh, exposing his bright white teeth and little crinkles around his eyes.

Nanaba sticks her tongue out at Mike, replying, “See, Erwin’s a big boy, his feelings don’t get hurt that easy,” she turns and shoves her book into her cross-body bag, resting on her hip. “Come on,” she says, “I know way more about this place than Mikey does. Let me show you around.”

Erwin glances at Mike, who shrugs, and they follow her down the hall.

“Okay,” Nanaba says in a hushed tone. Erwin and Mike lean in to listen to her. “The strawberry blonde over there in the mini? That’s Petra. She’s a sweetheart but—and I’ve only heard this from other people, not personal experience—apparently she’s a total narc. And there was this guy, I don’t remember how old he was, but he’s graduated now—Oluo Bozado. They totally had a thing,  _if you know what i mean,_ and everyone knew about it. It was super scandalous at the time because she was a freshman. But now everyone says she’s got a crush on Levi Ackerman. Me though? I personally don’t see it.”

“Who? Levi, Like the jeans?” Erwin asks.

But Nanaba ignores him. “That bald guy in the tweed who just went into that classroom? That’s Mr. Pyxis. He does history. Complete nutjob, but he’s not that bad of a teacher in my opinion. A sophomore told me that they saw him do a bump of coke off one of those tiny spoons once. Again,  _heresay,_ but...I can’t say I don’t completely believe it. One of the only teachers to get Levi Ackerman into detention.”

“I don’t...know who that is.”

“ _Those_ two weirdos,” she continues, as if she’s rolling her eyes at him,  “...as in, the tall chick with the glasses in the letterman jacket and the guy who follows her around everywhere—are Hange and Moblit. I don’t know if they’re dating or what but...They’re the only people that Levi Ackerman hangs around. They do, like, chess and stuff, but I don’t know why Levi—  _”_

“Yo, Nanaba,” Mike interrupts, “Since when did you become an Ackerman cheerleader?”

Nanaba shoots him a cold glance and says, in a serious voice, “I’m not. In fact, I’m the opposite. Levi’s a dick,” she turns to Erwin, “He plays football; runningback specifically, so he’s got girls lined up out the door who would snatch him up in a minute. So he’s probably definitely a total player. I heard he got a girl pregnant. But he’s also, like, I don’t know. Goth? Punk? He looks like he never sleeps and he wears a leather jacket  _all_ the time. Even when it’s hot out. And get this—he drives a motorcycle to school. And he definitely has a flask that he keeps in his locker. That one I can confirm, I’ve seen it myself.”

“Sounds intimidating,” Erwin says, adjusting his glasses.

“Ya think?” Nanaba replies. “But what really irks me is that everyone think’s he’s  _so_ cool. If Levi Ackerman bothers to speak to you, it means you must be prettier than every other bitch in your clique, ‘cause he never gives anyone the time of day.”

“Are you serious?” Mike snorts, “Nan, you totally think he’s cool. You only hate him ‘cause he outranks you on the  _hot shit_ ladder. He’s the only person that anyone thinks is cooler than you.”

“Bite me,” she snaps. “He only thinks he’s hot shit. And it pisses me off.”

“But he  _is_ hot shit  _,”_ Mike insists.

“Wait,” Erwin interjects, “Nanaba—so you’re like, popular then?”

Nanaba shrugs. “I guess so. I’m no cheerleader, but I know just about everyone in our graduating class. And the dweebs are all scared of me, so that counts. I’m the girl people come up to when you need to know something, you feel? I  _know_ things. I know people. You know?”

“Except Levi Ackerman,” Mike chimes in, grinning from ear to ear with a mischievous flair in his eyes.

“God, whatever, Mikey,” she stops, “I’ve gotta head to homeroom. If I’m late on the first day of school again the teachers aren’t ever gonna stop giving me shit,” she begins to turn a corner before she turns back, whispering to Mike, “And for the love of God, keep the girls away from Erwin. He’s so cute and virginal. They’ll ruin him.”

“Nanaba what the  _fuck—”_ Mike starts, but she’s already laughing halfway down the hallway by then. Erwin snorts, slightly embarrassed.

“C’mon dude, we should probably head to first period, too,” Mike sighs, slightly amused, but trying not to show it.

The two saunter down the hallway, making small talk and reminiscing about their boyish summer exploits. Erwin feels much better than he did twenty minutes ago. Mike is something of a security blanket to him; he knows more about Erwin than anybody. It would be a lie to say that they had never felt anything deeper for each other.

But those feelings are old feelings now.

“So uh, that Levi Ackerman,” Erwin starts.

“What about him?”

“Does he get into trouble a lot? I mean, does he start fights with other people?”

“No, actually. He keeps to himself most of the time. He’ll only get into fights if you make some kinda personal attack against him. Only then will all hell totally break loose.”

“So...he’s not—if he found out about me, like, the kind of people I’m... he wouldn’t—?” He trails off. He hates asking this question.

He pauses to think for a moment. “Not Ackerman. I don’t know his, like, personal philosophy, but he generally doesn’t give a shit about what other people do. There are some other guys you’ve gotta be careful of around here, but Ackerman’s not a threat unless you do something  _super_ insulting,” Mike assures.

“ _Don’t insult Levi Ackerman. Don’t insult Levi Ackerman,_ ” Erwin repeats to himself. “ _He’ll probably ruin your life if you do._ ”

The first half of Erwin’s day goes swimmingly; he makes a good impression on his first period class, and in second period he wins the hearts of at least three girls by picking up clumsily dropped books, (although the third one was definitely not an accident).

An example of a dialogue, for reference:

“ _Hiiiiii, I haven’t seen you around before. What’s your name?”_  
_“I’m Erwin, I just moved here from Rosewall.”_  
_“Rosewall? Oh woooow. I heard it’s like, sooooooo nice up there. Did you, like, have a butler?”_  
“ _Er, for a short time when I was a kid, but—”  
__“Oh my God that’s sooo cool!”_

Etc.

Mostly, Erwin spends the whole day conjuring up images in his mind of what this Levi Ackerman supposedly looks like. He plays football? He’s probably 6’7” and weighs 250 pounds. He probably wears brass knuckles. He probably smells like vodka and pot and doesn’t give a damn about it. He’s probably broken fifty hearts. He probably carries a pocket knife. Hell, he’s probably stabbed someone before—and gotten away with it.

 

It’s lunchtime.

And the first time Erwin sees Levi Ackerman, he is monumentally underwhelmed.

“It was so weird, you guys,” he exclaims to Nanaba and Mike as they make their way through the lunch line. “I didn’t think it was him at first—I thought, no, that can’t be the Levi Ackerman that everyone’s so afraid of. But then I saw those two from earlier go sit down with him! I didn’t realize that he’d look like  _that,”_ he says, humor in his tone, but he’s mostly laughing at himself; he can’t believe he was so scared of Levi before.

“Yeah, his haircut is pretty interesting,” Mike says.

“No no, I mean, he’s so sh—”

“Erwin, wait,” Nanaba tries to cut him off, but it's no use.

“...He’s so  _short!_ I mean, come on you guys, you said he played football. He’s as tall as my twelve year old cousin, and she does gymnastics.”

“Excuse me?” rings an icy, monotone voice from behind Erwin.

Mike and Nanaba freeze. Either an entire hush falls upon the lunchroom, or Erwin’s sudden panic cuts out all noise outside of a two meter radius. He turns around, slowly, a mortified expression dawning on his face.

Glaring up and him with the most terrifying, beautiful, night-blue eyes Erwin has ever seen, is Levi Ackerman.

He  _is_ short. Nearly a foot shorter than Erwin, in fact, but his height fails to deter the aura of intimidating dominance surrounding him. His lips are slightly chapped, and his skin so ghastly white that it’s nearly translucent. His jeans are tattered at the knees and one of his boots is untied, and both are caked in dry mud. His leather jacket is slightly too big for him.

“I—uh—” Erwin stammers, red faced, breath vanishing from his lungs. He feels awful; not necessarily because he’s afraid of Levi, but because he realizes how uncharacteristically rude his choice of words was. “ _He’s going to kill me. I’m going to die right here,”_ he thinks. Something about Levi’s gaze is particularly unsettling. His eyes are exhausted, muted in color, almost glassy looking. But his stare is so intense it makes Erwin’s skin crawl. He’s imprisoned in a purgatorial, never-ending eye contact. “...Sorry,” Erwin croaks out.

Nanaba clutches the strap of her cross-body bag, holding her breath. Mike swallows dryly.

“You know,” Levi says, his voice low and gravely, “if I looked like you, I wouldn’t be making comments on other peoples’ appearances.”

Silence.

“...Your eyebrows are the size of train cars,” he continues flatly. “You’re so Aryan you look like you belong in a Third-Reich special addition playgirl. And you dress like you have a fifty foot flagpole up your ass. Your shirt is so tucked in that you’re beginning to resemble a vacuum-sealed bag of meat, and the shape of your glasses isn’t doing you any favors either. But maybe that’s why you look the way you do. Because you can’t see.”

Nanaba’s mouth hangs open slightly. Mike is visibly holding himself back from intervening. Levi refuses to break eye contact. A thousand pairs of eyes are turned toward them, waiting for disaster,  _something,_ but instead…

Erwin cracks a soft, embarrassed smile; it’s the only way he knows how to process anything. He laughs.

Levi furrows his brow, but doesn’t speak.

“I, um, I deserved that,” Erwin says. “I really am sorry...if it means anything.”

Levi’s left eye twitches, but the rest of his expression remains unchanged. He turns and walks away silently, Hange and Moblit scrambling after him like children.

Nanaba exhales dramatically as the atmosphere shifts back to normal. The dull roar of the cafeteria echoes in Erwin’s ears as he stands, eyes locked on the ground where Levi stood, unable to move for a brief moment.

“Dude…” Mike murmurs. Erwin’s neck snaps up to look at him.

He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

Nanaba, pretending not to hyperventilate, wheezes,  “Erwin. I don’t want you to freak out. Okay? Okay. Things aren’t looking good. Maybe if you had burst into tears after he insulted you, he would have been satisfied. But now I don’t know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Erwin raises his voice.

“Nan, quit freaking out,” Mike chimes in, but she brushes him off.

“Am I gonna die?!”

“You’re not gonna—” Mike says

“I don’t know, it’s definitely possible. He’s unpredictable,” Nanaba continues, like pouring gasoline over a fire.

Mike grits his teeth and exhales. “ _Shut it,_ Nanaba,” he nearly growls, “Ackerman’s all bark and no bite. For now—ugh, I don’t know,” he thinks out loud, exasperated, “Just pray that you don’t have any classes with him.”

 

Ten minutes later, Erwin Smith is in Chemistry II. Erwin Smith’s lab partner is Levi Ackerman.

Obviously this did not happen by choice. The seat next to Levi’s was the only one open in the classroom, which, Erwin thinks, was probably because everyone else was too scared to sit next to him. Too late now, though; they’re stuck together whether they like it or not.

Levi sits with his arms resting on the table in front of him, his back hunched over. He looks like he’s about to fall asleep. Every so often he’ll glance at Erwin with his vicious, cold stare, and then look away again. Erwin shifts in his seat.

The teacher’s voice drones on at the front of the classroom: “ _blah blah...we’ve gone over the syllabus, we’re going to do some titrations to refresh our memories from last year. Everyone should have a pipette and two different solutions on your desk, blah blah...blah…safety gear in a moment...”_

Erwin turns to Levi, who knows that Erwin is looking at him, but he refuses to return eye contact. “So uh…” Erwin mutters, trying his absolute hardest, “I know we kind of, got off to a bad start. I didn’t mean what I said in a bad way or anything, just— I don't know. I say things without thinking. I'm Erwin, by the—”

Levi suddenly turns to look at him, and Erwin stops. Without uttering a word, Levi reaches to the side and casually picks up a beaker in his bony fingers. The blue fluid inside sloshes around, and he pauses for a second. And then he dumps it onto Erwin’s shirt.

“What—Why would you—?!” Erwin exclaims.

“Mrs. Rheinberger? Edward spilled the indicator all over himself. He’s probably going to die,” Levi proclaims, loudly and flatly, raising a hand in the air. His expression and mannerisms don’t change, but Erwin can sense an air of smugness radiating off of him.

“That's not my—He  _dumped it on me—_ ”

“Chemical shower, _NOW,”_ screeches the teacher, and a bout of stifled laughter ripples through the room. “Everybody out!”

Erwin’s face heats up. “Do I have to? Can’t I just change my shirt?”

As the rest of the class stands up and ambles toward the door, she scolds, “Young man, we have  _protocols_ in this lab and we do not make sacrifices in the name of safety just because you’re a little bit  _embarrassed—_ Ackerman! Wake up, space ace. Get a move on.”

Levi stands up, and, for a brief moment, he looks Erwin in the eye. The corners of his lips twitch upward.

 

The water of the chemical shower is freezing, and now Erwin’s clothes are ruined for good. The shutters on the classroom window are pulled down, but they aren’t shut all the way, and he can see more than one pair of big, mascaraed eyes peering in at him.

“ _Good grief,”_ he thinks.

He supposes that it could have been worse. But then again, he wonders whether or not Levi knew what he was doing; if he knew exactly how toxic that chemical was, or if he did it on impulse and had hoped for the worse. It doesn’t matter now, though. Erwin can’t even feel sorry for himself. He’s disappointed that he’s going to have to wear some stranger’s clothes for the rest of the day, sure, but mostly, he feels  _bad._

“ _You know what?”_ he asks himself, water running down his face, hair sticking to his forehead. “ _That guy’s life probably sucks.”_ He spits out some water that accidentally makes its way into his mouth. “ _Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe he’s just a psychotic, vindictive jerk.”_

 

...But he gives him the benefit of the doubt.


	2. Enjoy the Silence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as i stated when i posted this before. i use they/them pronouns for hange. if you dont like it get over it lmao
> 
> ableist slur warning but it's not as if any of you assholes care about that stuff anyways. youre probably just here for the hawt yaoiz

Levi Ackerman, 18 years old, crown prince of all insomniacs, does not want to go to school.

He swings his feet over the side of his bed, pulling on the jeans he had worn the day before. A sliver of light streams into his bedroom, which is impeccably clean if you ignore how ratty the carpets are. His curtains don’t fit the window. Every poster on his wall has been torn down and taped back up again. He slips on his boots and jacket, soundlessly making his way to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He doesn’t bother to fix his hair.

He gazes around the inside of the trailer, and he nearly gags at the stack of dishes that’s been accumulating in the sink over the past few days. He would have to do those when he came home today. As he meanders into the kitchen, he winces at the hollow sound of an empty beer can being kicked across the dingy green tile; he had hit it accidentally. Behind him, he can hear his uncle, asleep on the couch, roll over. Levi breathes a silent sigh of relief when he doesn’t wake up.

He whips up a cup of instant coffee as fast as he possibly can and downs it in two gulps. Grabbing his keys, a pack of cigarettes, five bucks, and a pencil, he sneaks out the door like ghost who hadn't even been there.

His motorcycle makes an ungodly noise when he tries to start it, but he shrugs it off. It takes him half an hour to get to school—possibly a little more, because he has to wait for the train to pass before he can even leave his neighborhood.

The only two people at school he legitimately knows by name are Hange and Moblit. Hange, he has known since childhood, and Moblit he’s friends with only by proximity. He knows the last names of most of the guys on the school football team, but it would take him a moment to recall them.

“How was your summer, Ackerman?” Hange asks enthusiastically on their way to first period. They’re both five minutes late to homeroom; Levi is late because he doesn’t care. Hange and Moblit, on the other hand, had just been waiting for Levi to show up.

“You saw me three days ago,” he says dryly.

“Yeah, but I feel like I barely saw you anyways.”

“You were in Maryland with your grandparents.”

“For a week, dude.”

“Oh?” He replies, “I couldn’t tell. Everything sort of runs together when it’s hot out.”

With an eyeroll, Hange mutters, “Yeah, sure.”

But the day really does run together. Levi doesn’t fall asleep in class, per say, he can’t ever sleep; he spaces out. He spends the day feeling like his soul is floating two feet away from his body. Typical. At lunchtime, though, as he and Hange and Moblit are making their way out of the cafeteria to go play cards under the bleachers, he hears his name said by an unfamiliar voice. He stops to listen.

_“...He’s so short! I mean, come on you guys, you said he played football. He’s as tall as my twelve year old cousin, and she does gymnastics.”_

And right there, he just about loses it. He can see Hange shaking their head, about to mouth something to tell him to brush it off, but Levi can’t help himself.

“Excuse me?”

So this guy, this— _unnaturally_ handsome guy has the nerve to apologize?  _As if_ _._  No, Levi can’t leave it alone. He's gotta say something scathing. Drag him through the mud. Leave him speechless; sure, he’s no girl, so he won’t crumble as easy by attacking his physical appearance. It’ll still hurt.

Or will it?

Damn you. Damn you,  _damn you!_   _Why the fuck are you laughing?!_

Levi turns, absolutely seething in rage, and walks away.

“Levi…?” Hange asks as delicately as they possibly can. Levi doesn’t say anything. All three of them make their way to the bleachers, where they sit down in the brown grass, and Levi is even more unnervingly quiet than he usually is.

“Do you want my chips?” asks Hange.

  
“No,” Levi replies, shoving a sandwich into his mouth, staring at a spider on one of the bleacher support beams.

“I want your chips,” Moblit says.

Hange gives him the chips. More silence; with the exception of the sound of Moblit eating chips.

It’s usually not this bad. They don’t always talk, sure, but Levi’s eye keeps twitching and it’s beginning to freak Hange out. Hange and Moblit make eye contact, unsure of what to say.

“Levi?”

His response is slightly delayed. “...Uh huh.”

“Don’t tell me you’re mad about that guy. He was a tool.”

“I’m not mad,” he lies.

“Come on, dude.”

“I’m not. How old do you think I am? Five?”

 

Fifteen minutes later, Levi is dumping a beaker of aqueous  _Bromophenal Blue_ onto Erwin’s stupid, too-white polo shirt. He barely even realizes what he’s done before the teacher is calling him names and telling him to leave the classroom. He looks Erwin in the eyes—his ridiculous, too-blue eyes, and almost smiles.

Out in the hallway girls are snickering about the size of Erwin’s arms, the width of his shoulders, the cut of his cheekbones, the way his nose is just so  _cute!_...Levi tunes them out and stares at the ceiling with his arms crossed. There’s a football meeting after school today. He’s got work until nine. And those _damn dishes…_ Good lord, it’s the first day of school and he’s already fantasizing about throwing himself under a train. Must be a new record, he thinks. He would have laughed at the thought if he were more expressive.

Later that day he sneaks out during passing period to smoke a cigarette behind the gym. There’s a breeze, and it’s hot, but it doesn’t bother him. Absentmindedly staring at the crinkle of the mountains across the horizon, the smoke from his cigarette kisses his hollow cheeks and the bags under his eyes. He hears a slurry of faint voices coming from the field, just to the right of the gym building.

 _“Hey! You’re Erwin, right?”_  
 _“Um, yeah. I am.”_  
 _“Is it true that Levi Ackerman tried to give you a chemical burn today?”_  
 _“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that.”_  
 _“But Nanaba said that they made you strip and and use the chem shower. Is that true?”_  
 _“Yeah.”_  
 _“That’s so whack! I’ve gone here since middle school and that’s never happened before.”_  
 _“Oh. Well, it’s really not that big of a deal. The shirt was kinda dumb. I think I deserved it anyways. I feel really bad actually… “_  
 _“Psh, whatever. Hey, you know, you should try out for football. You’ve got the build for it.”_  
 _“Ah, I would, but I have like, uh, asthma…”_  
 _“Huh. You don’t look like you have asthma.”_  
“...Thanks?”

 

Levi tosses the end of his cigarette into the grass and smashes it with his foot. "Asthma," he mutters, "That's funny."

He shoves his hands into his pockets, making his way back inside. He sees Erwin standing with someone he doesn’t know. Shirtless, in red gym shorts, flashing his perfect-toothed smile as he pushes back his slightly damp hair. There’s something so painfully angelic about him. He radiates light, his posture is excellent; his mannerisms are vaguely insecure, but at the same time the sound of his voice is so strong and deep and  _masculine_. Levi would be sneering, if he sneered. They notice each other. Levi can see Erwin’s eyes—his stupid, glistening, doe eyes—flash with some feeling that he doesn’t quite understand. He turns his head quickly, and takes his time getting to his last class of the day.

English. He sits in the back with Hange. Moblit has choir last period, and Hange is mourning his temporary absence. Levi is staring at the names of the countries on the map beside the blackboard. " _Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Russia…Shit, that's a lot of countries."_

“Mr. Ackerman? Do you know the author?”

Levi’s attention snaps back to the teacher. “What?” he says, rubbing his eyes as if he just woke up from a nap.

“Do you know who wrote the classic American play,  _Our Town?”_ _  
_

Levi drags his hand down his face, eyes shifting, “Uh, Thornton Wilder, I think, sir.”

“That is… correct.”

“And you’re surprised because..?” he murmurs to himself under his breath. “ _Asshole_   _._ ”

Hange snorts. Levi almost smiles.

Levi notices Hange aggressively scribbling something down on a piece of paper. They slide it over in front of Levi. It reads,

 

_I heard what you did to that Erwin Smith guy._

 

Levi writes back,

 

_Who?_

 

“You  _know_ who,” Hange whispers through their teeth, “you collossal  _fuckhead_. What were you thinking? You could have actually hurt the guy.”

“First of all, I wasn’t. Thinking, that is. Second of all, what are you, my mom? Chill out, Hange.”

Hange goes quiet for a moment. “I’m just trying to look out for you, okay?”

“While I deeply, deeply appreciate the sentiment, that kind of thing doesn’t really work in retrospect,” he says, voice dripping with sarcasm. "And besides, that indicator was incredibly diluted anyways. Sure the fumes are toxic if it's concentrated, but—"

“You’re absolutely insufferable sometimes,” Hange begins, but they’re interrupted:

“MISS Zoe,” booms the teacher, “ _What_ is it that’s so important to you and Mr. Ackerman that it cannot wait until class has ended?”

Without missing a beat, before Hange even has the chance to respond, Levi deadpans, “Anything.”

The class snickers evilly at Levi’s response.

To Levi’s surprise, neither one of them lands a detention. Not that it would matter, since he’s never attended a single detention he’s ever received. He stares at the map for the rest of class.

 

Not much happens at the football meeting. The coach, who only pretends to like Levi and because Levi is fast _,_ smart, and  _wins,_  asks Levi if he has anything to say to the Freshman who would be trying out for varsity later that week.

“Advice? I’m not great with advice. Drink water. Don’t smoke.”

 

On his way to work, Levi passes by a bunch of weird little places that he’s never been in: a psychic’s office, a Christian Science reading room, a place for orthopedic shoes, the gay men’s health crisis clinic, a vacant flower shop. He pulls into the parking lot of his work, which is a small grocery store owned by an old couple who had known him and his mother from ages ago. Oftentimes, it’s nearly empty when he’s there, and he doesn’t possibly know how the place stays open. He doesn’t complain, though. It pays. And he gets discounts on food.

The night at the grocery store is uneventful, but those are the kind of nights that Levi likes the best. He closes the store almost every day, which means that he’s also solely in charge of tidying up every aisle and restocking every shelf. What sounds torturous to any rational person is Levi Ackerman’s wet dream. He finds it intensely therapeutic. Here, at least, he can pull the shutters down and turn the radio way up without anybody knowing but him.

At eleven o’clock he heads home (he often stays much longer than he has to, not leaving until every inch of the store is spotless), and wants nothing more than to get in the shower and to crawl into bed—but he’s got dishes to wash. He stands at the sink, shoes and jacket off now, scrubbing old plates and attempting to get rid of the mysterious residue caked onto them. Gently, he washes his cup, too, his only cup, with the handle broken off and sanded down so he’d stop scraping himself on the edge. He could get a new one, but he doesn’t want to.

“Finally got around to the fuckin’ dishes, eh?”

Levi keeps his eyes down at the sink. His breath hitches, and his fingernails dig into the plate that he's clutching in his hands. “I’ve been at school all day, Kenny. Haven’t been able to get to them,” he answers. He places his last dish into the dish strainer and turns off the water, drying his hands on his shirt. His heart rate accelerates every second he can feel Kenny's eyes on him. He tries to go to his room, but then—

“Levi, I’d appreciate it if you looked at me when I spoke to you,” Kenny says, drawling. He’s sitting on the couch, hunched over and lighting a cigarette. His eyes scan Levi up and down; the two of them bear a striking resemblance to one another, but Kenny is much taller and has a longer chin. His long, stringy black hair hangs in front of his face.

Levi, reluctantly, turns toward him and apologizes. His hand are almost shaking.

“Right,” Kenny says, taking a puff. “And stand up straight. It makes you look even shorter when you slouch.”

Had it been anyone else, Levi would have said something back. But he’s not looking to cause any trouble tonight. He straightens his back, saying, "Alright," and he heads to his room.

When he shuts the door behind him, he lets out a hard exhale, collapsing on the edge of his bed and sucking in long, slow, quiet breaths. He runs a hand through his hair and stares down at the floor, still trembling. He places his other hand over his chest, feeling his heart beat.

" _Get a fucking grip, Levi,"_ he scolds himself.

When he showers, the water is lukewarm, but he doesn’t mind. He debates in his head whether or not he should have another smoke before turning in. He opts for no—that is, for now, because he knows that he’ll probably be up in the middle of the night anyways. The foundation of the trailer shakes as a train passes on the tracks nearby. The familiar rattling of dishes in the kitchen echoes in Levi’s ears, meddling with the sound of dripping water.

_Crash!_

Levi freezes, soap dripping down his hair and onto his bare shoulders, into his eyes, not noticing. He waits.

“ _LEVI!”_ Kenny shouts. “Come in here and clean that shit up!”

Levi can't breathe again for some reason. He closes his eyes for a moment, and it's as if he's not inside his body anymore. His stomach churns and he suddenly thinks that he might actually throw up—he doesn't, thank God. Rinsing himself off the best he can before shimmying into an old shirt and a pair of boxers, he tries his best to control the tremor in his hands. It's not much use.

“What happened?” Levi asks, hair still soaking wet as he exits the bathroom.

“You should know, you’re the one who stacked the dishes on the counter like a retard.”

Levi opens his mouth to respond, but all he can get out is, “Shit, I’m sorry.”

“Too late for that now,” Kenny says.

Levi kneels down on the kitchen floor and begins to pick up chunks of broken plate. Is the ground spinning? No, that's just him. Not thinking, he accidentally slices his left index finger on an edge, but doesn’t notice for a few minutes. He rinses it off in the sink before he goes to bed.

In his bedroom, he lays face up, staring at his poster of The Cure on his ceiling. It has a tear down the middle that he had taped back together, but he isn't bothered by it. His walls are the most cluttered thing about him: they’re layered with tattered posters, photos, and magazine cut outs of all the rock stars he both openly and secretly worships. Iggy pop, David Bowie, The Ramones, The Smiths, Joy Division… Prince. They’re all there—many of them haphazardly reassembled after being ripped in half, but Levi loves them anyways.

Another train comes by. Levi silently prays that no more dishes break. He exhales when the train finally passes.

As the night drags on and sleep refuses to claim him, Levi digs around under his bed and pulls out his  _definitely-obtained-through-legal-means_ _™_   Walkman and his  _definitely-not-pirated_ _™_ box of cassette tapes. Tonight, he opts for Bowie.

_Ground control to Major Tom_

_Ground control to Major Tom_

_Take your protein pills and put your helmet on._

What did that chemistry teacher call him today? Space ace? What a bitch. She’s not  _wrong,_ per say. But that doesn’t mean Levi wants to hear about it from anybody.

He grabs a cigarette and a lighter off his night table. Third one today, he thinks, sparking it up (he'd had one after work, too), and the thought gnaws on him. He should cut back but he’s not sure if he can.

Levi's not a nervous person most of the time, or at least that's what he thinks of himself. He's just got too many thoughts and not enough space to put them.

Hange comes to mind for a moment. He wonders if they’d forgive him for being such a dick earlier, but he knows they will. They always do.

It disturbs him a little bit. “ _Sometimes_ ,” he thinks,  _“I really do deserve to be yelled at, don’t I?”_

He's baffled at the notion that Hange's stuck around him for so long, but he's glad they have, even if he doesn't deserve it. He really had stacked those plates like an idiot , hadn't he? He would blame it on being overtired, but that wouldn't make sense. He can't even sleep now.

_Tell my wife I love her very much she knows_

_Ground Control to Major Tom_

_Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong_

_Can you hear me, Major Tom?_

“I hear you,” he murmurs.

He blows smoke at Robert Smith’s pretty face. His thoughts, milky white and finally beginning to succumb to the ecstasy of darkness, happen upon Erwin. For a moment, Levi grits his teeth together—but he stops, sighing and taking a long, drawn out drag. He’d gotten his revenge. He’s especially proud of of calling Erwin the wrong name; he thinks that that was a particularly evil touch.

Short? Oh, please, he’s been called worse things by closer people.

But that doesn’t mean that Levi’s ready to let Erwin off the hook yet—he dislikes him, plain and simple. Or at least that’s what he believes.

  
“  _You bastard,”_ Levi nearly dreams, “  _You put me right to sleep._ ”


	3. Personality Crisis

On his drive home from school, Erwin debates whether or not he should tell his mother the truth about his first day—that is, as to why his new shirt had gotten ruined. He doesn't want to scare her, or have her freak out and go batshit on the administration.

He pulls into his family's outdoor driveway. His new house is a little bit out of the way from town, about twenty minutes north, out in what appears to be the middle of nowhere. The edge of the woods is about a mile to the right, and directly behind his house is a long, rolling stretch of green hills. In the distance, Erwin can see the ripple of pale brown wheat as the late summer breeze slithers through the field. On the left side in front of the house is a towering oak tree, with a thick, winding trunk and golden-green leaves. Its branches extend all the way up to Erwin's bedroom on the second floor.

He climbs the steps of his front porch and goes inside, door swinging open into the foyer where his mother is aggressively cycling on an exercise bike. When she notices he’s home, she nearly falls off in enthusiasm.

“Honey!” She gasps, pushing her bright purple headband further back against her curly hair. She’s in a hideous lime green leotard and purple leggings. “How was your first day at school?” she asks, out of breath. “Why are you in your gym clothes?”

“Ah,” Erwin replies, deliberating for a moment. He glances down at his plain grey T-shirt, which, luckily, he didn’t actually have to wear during gym today. “I’m a klutz and I spilled some stuff on my shirt in chemistry. Funny thing, they, uh, made me do one of those chemical showers, but it’s okay—”

“They didn’t have you in aprons? Were you wearing goggles?!”

“We were about to put them on, mom, honest. It was my fault anyways. I didn’t get hurt. Actually, I made a couple friends because of it. I guess you could say that I made a splash,” he smiles, exposing his bright white teeth.

She crosses her arms and glances at him sideways. “If you’re  _absolutely_ sure you’re okay. I don’t want you breathing in any of those toxic fumes and getting sick.”

“Mom, I’m fine, honest.”

She makes her way into the kitchen, grabbing a glass from one of the cupboards above the counter and filling it with water, she chugs the whole thing with unnecessary drama. Slamming it down on the countertop, she says, “Leave your clothes on top of the washer. Let me see if I can pre-treat it and get the stains out.”

“Alright.”

Erwin makes his way upstairs to his bedroom, kicking off his shoes into his closet as he flips the light switch on. They’ve only been living here for a month and his room is already an eccentric mess. It’s not dirty, necessarily, he just has a lot of  _stuff._ An entire bookcase dedicated to comic books is nestled up against the side of his desk, and on the floor just across from the foot of his bed is a TV and a Nintendo Entertainment System. He’s got action figures lined up in rows on shelves. Posters of the Star Wars trilogy, the second Star Trek movie, Metroid, Captain America, and other infinitely dorky things (that is, minus the single signed Madonna poster right beside his bed) are arranged in pristine fashion on his walls. He takes great pride in the aesthetics of his room—he knows that the things he enjoys aren’t exactly cool, but he’s got bigger things to worry about than what other people think of him. If he worried so much about what other people thought, then, well…

 

He slings his pale blue backpack onto his desk, pulling out the remains of his old clothes and tossing them into the laundry basket by his dresser. He’d deal with them later. He sits down in his desk chair—cross legged, despite the fact that his chair is too small to be sat in that way—and pulls out his notebooks from school. No homework on the first day, thank God, but more than one teacher had handed out a syllabus that needed signing.

His window is open just a crack and he can hear birds chirping in the oak tree outside. Erwin likes this time of day the most, when it isn’t quite sunset yet, but everything has a certain gildedness about it. It’s characteristic of this time of year; late summer just before autumn.

He wishes that he could stop being so dense. Sure, he’s smart, and he  _knows_ that he’s smart, but being able to do basic integral calculus isn’t going to help him socially. Not that he’s bad at making friends—mostly everyone  _seemed_ to like him at school, even if he’s kind of a big geek. But making friends isn’t what worries him, it’s the fact that he could lose everything all at once by blurting out something he should have kept to himself.

He swallows dryly, trying to push the thought to the back of his head. There’s a knock at his door.

“Come in,” he says.   
His mother opens the door, out of her workout clothes now and in a knit top and leggings, barefoot. She’s holding a folded up piece of paper in her hand. “So,” she says, shutting the door behind her,

a new gentleness in her tone, “I made some calls around today. And, I know that you’re not in Scouts anymore, so you don’t have to do community service hours, but…” she pauses, handing him the piece of paper. She takes a seat on the corner of his bed, continuing, “I just thought, you really enjoyed volunteering at the clinic back home, so that’s the address to the clinic out here. They said they’re always looking for people to do filing, helping out, you know. They also said they can start you training for counselling after your birthday because you’ll be 18. I don’t know if that’s something you’d still want to do, and It’s pretty far away, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to. It’s just a suggestion.”

Erwin opens the piece of paper:   _Gay Men’s Health Crisis Center of America, 3393 W Sun Street, Maria, Idaho 83201._

He’s silent for a moment. “Do you know how far away it is from school?” He asks.   
“About half an hour, I think. It’s pretty deserted down there too. I don’t think you’d run into anyone you know.”

“Huh.”

The response is followed by more silence accompanied by the ambient noise of wind moving through leaves outside.

“I’ll think about it,” Erwin says.

His mother stands up, giving him a warm look. She leans down and kisses the top of his head. “You know I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” she murmurs.

“I know, mom.”

“And you know that your dad and I try as hard as we can.”

“I know.”

She stands for a moment, both of them inadvertently staring down at the address on Erwin’s desk. She turns away, opening his door and pausing— “You shouldn’t sit like that, honey, it’s bad for your back. And that chair.”

Erwin just barely smiles.

 

The next few days at school aren’t that bad. In fact, besides the death trap that is fifth period chemistry, school seems to be going pretty well. Erwin still only talks to Mike and Nanaba, but he’s garnered a few new acquaintances that he’s pretty proud of. Most of them are girls, but hey, he’s got to take what he can get. He knows that most of the time they’re only flirting with him, but what is he supposed to do about that? Be dismissive? Roll his eyes? Be  _cool?_ No, he’d have an easier time running a marathon.

The thought of his run-in with Levi Ackerman bothers him endlessly. Laying in bed one night, staring at his ceiling fan in the dark, he thinks, “  _It’s going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”_

And it haunts him every time he sits next to Levi in chemistry. Yet again he finds himself at another loss—is he supposed to apologize? It failed miserably the last time. Maybe he should just forget about the whole thing.

Again, he’d have an easier time running a marathon.

But even then, chemistry isn’t that bad anyways. To an outsider, Erwin and Levi are just two kids who have absolutely nothing in common, who have to sit with each other, who have agreed to cooperate for better or for worse—for the sake of civility. They don’t talk unless they have to. Erwin swears up and down that they’ve only made eye contact twice since the first day of school. To an outsider, Erwin and Levi are a brainiac and a burnout trying to interact as little as possible.

The next Monday at school, the class receives their first graded chemistry quiz of the year. Erwin scores a 102% (due to an extra credit question at the end). No one is surprised.

What surprises Erwin, however, is what he sees when he casts a sidelong glance at Levi’s quiz.

“You got a 97? That’s awesome,” Erwin says, before he realizes that he’s breaking his  _Don’t Talk To Levi_ policy.

Without changing his expression, staring at and holding his paper in two hands, Levi replies, “I guess so.”

Erwin blinks, slightly taken aback. “I mean… I don’t know, I consider it a good score,” he shrugs, shifting in his seat, glancing down at his desk.

“Yeah. It doesn’t really mean anything, though.”

“What? Of course it does.”

“Yeah?” Levi asks, looking up at Erwin, his tone the same as ever, “Then what does it mean?”

Erwin stutters for a moment. “You know. It means you’re like, smart and stuff.”

“Getting good grades doesn’t mean you’re smart,” Levi says, eyes returning to his quiz. “I mean,  _you_ got a 102%.”

Erwin opens his mouth to answer, but the bell rings and Levi stands up before he can get anything out. Erwin shoves his quiz into a folder, whereas Levi, in typical fashion, crumples up his paper and throws it away on the way out. Erwin furrows his brow.

 

When he comes home that day, he tells his mother, “I think I’ll do the volunteering.”

His mother drives him down to the clinic for his debut. The roads down here are dirt, Erwin notices, staring out the window of his mother’s station wagon. More brown, less green. They wait five minutes for a train to pass. A stray dog—skinny, grey with matted fur, barks at it as it thunders by.

They pull up to the clinic and the inside, as Erwin had expected, is mostly an uncomfortable matte white. Plastered to the wall above the beige waiting chairs is a poster with large print overlaid on top of a glass of grape kool-aid:

 **Some people think you can catch AIDS from a glass.**   **  
** **You can’t.**

**_Fight the fear with the facts._ **

 

Attention diverted, Erwin doesn’t hear his mother say his name the first time.

“Erwin? Why don’t you introduce yourself, honey,” she says. 

He glances away from the wall and back to her. “Oh,” he replies, pressing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

The woman seated at the front desk smiles at him in an absolutely dreadful shade of pink.

Erwin exchanges a grin. “I’m Erwin, it’s real nice to meet you. I’m excited to help out around here,” he says, extending a hand.

She lifts hers off her typewriter, her nearly-skeletal fingers grasping his firmly, saying, “Your mother tells me you’re great at alphabetizing.”

 

…

 

Erwin is pretty great at alphabetizing. Not that it’s hard, but he enjoys doing it, so it’s a boost for efficiency.

It’s only been a week and a half and he’s incidentally assumed the role of unofficial greeter and desk secretary. Despite the fact that he can barely use a typewriter he finds himself using one at least once a day. Karen, the  _real_ secretary, is an unapologetic chain smoker and quite frankly much less patient than Erwin is. At least twice a week, some poor asshole would wander in—more often than not a drug addict or a prostitute—saying,

“I was told I should come here… But, I’m not… gay, or anything. I don’t understand.”

To which, Erwin would calmly respond, “Well, you don’t have to be gay to get HIV.”

“So then why is it called the ‘gay men’s’ center? That’s misleading.”

“Because we used to think only gay men would be affected—” he would say, a stack of papers in his hands, pawing through tabs on a rolodex, “—and this clinic was founded by gay men.”

 

Little by little, Erwin adjusts to life in Maria. Be it abrupt, new, confusing, anxiety-inducing… It’s really not so bad. Maybe it’s just because nobody here  _knows_ , Erwin thinks. But he doesn’t dwell on it.

One night, particularly a Wednesday, Erwin is working until the clinic closes at six. He feels his stomach growl as he slides his last file into the  _S_ drawer of the cabinet in the back room. The light above him buzzes faintly above his head. There are no windows.

On his way out, he notices that the sky is dimmer than it usually is; there are stars beginning to appear overhead. Climbing into the front seat of his truck, he thinks, “  _I’m going to be late for dinner, darn it.”_

Although, he knows that he should have anticipated this. The thought of his mother comes to mind, specifically, the thought of her asking him to pick up milk at some point on his way home. He groans out loud. Go to MegaMart, she’d say, they have the best prices.

“But at what cost?” Erwin mutters, glancing at the clock on his dashboard. He sighs; he’s both pleased with himself for the pun, and exasperated that he technically isn’t allowed to go home yet. He could, theoretically, feign forgetfulness, claim that the thought just escaped him— but he knows that lying would bother him for the rest of his life.  _But MegaMart is on the other side of town._

He comes to a compromise in his head. There’s a little grocery store just a block down the street, right? It can’t possibly be that much more expensive than MegaMart.

“  _Why do we even care about how expensive things are, anyways? We’re rich.”_

So he goes. Dirt puffs up in clouds around the exterior of his truck, clinging to the areas where the paint is worn away. He parks in front of the store, waiting a moment for the dust to settle outside.

A bell chimes on the door when he steps inside. It really is a quaint little place, he thinks, beginning to wander down an aisle of cereal, just past the front register.

Neither of them notice each other at first.

It’s when Erwin is heading back to the front of the store, already retrieved a gallon of milk, when he hears the rare voice of someone he always prayed he’d never run into. Clutching onto the box of Captain Crunch he had absentmindedly picked up, Erwin peers around the end of the aisle, trying to get a good look at the person behind the register.

“Did you remember to check your eggs, Mrs. Reynolds?”

Erwin’s breath hitches. His eyes widen, and for a moment he stands completely still.

“You’re always so considerate, Levi,” coos the tiny, utterly geriatric woman standing in front of him.   
“It’s my job,” he deadpans. His voice is gravelly and he’s chewing gum.

Erwin fancies that he must be standing on some sort of stepstool, because he’s definitely not as tall as he appears. He’s wearing an olive green apron and a crooked nametag. His inky, oh-so-slightly greasy hair is a tousled mess on his head, but Erwin doesn’t think it looks bad. His cheeks are sunken in, and his eyelids are so droopy they look like they’re about to slam shut any minute. Erwin bites the inside of his cheek.

“Oh, I know, I know, but I know you care.”

“Ha,” Levi says, scanning a loaf of bread. It’s the closest thing to a laugh Erwin’s ever seen come out of him.

“You know, I remember when your mother would let you sit behind the counter at the diner, you were only two feet tall,” she continues.

“Yeah,” he answers, “Now I’m two and a half feet tall.”

The old woman erupts into an extended, wheezy fit of laughter. Levi’s expression doesn’t change, but Erwin swears he sees the corners of his lips twitch.

“How’s that old son of a bitch cat doing?” Levi asks. Erwin raises an eyebrow— it’s the first time he’s ever heard Levi speak without being spoken to first.

The old woman composes herself. “Oh, you know. He’s still always trying to kill the garter snakes and all. You know how he is.”

“I still have a scar where he scratched me, you know.”

“You were an unruly child, Levi. That’s not  _my_ fault.”

As Levi bags the last of her groceries, he asks, “Do you need any help carrying this stuff out?”

To which, she responds, “No, but I would like to see you smile.”

Erwin almost giggles.

And Levi  _does_ smile—only, his face is so contorted and pained looking that it’s one of the ugliest smiles Erwin has ever seen. Erwin can’t help but feel  _some_ type of way, but he’s not sure what it is; a childish snicker is hiding somewhere in his throat, but there’s a warmth in his chest that’s radiating from somewhere deeper than a place of humor. He just seems  _so…_ what’s the word?

The box of Captain Crunch slips out of Erwin’s hand and hits the floor with a muffled thud. Levi’s smile vanishes.

…  _Endearing?_

Erwin snaps backward and stands straight up with his back against the shelves, holding his breath, hoping to god that Levi hadn’t seen him. Erwin can hear the old woman leaving, and then--everything is still. The only sound in the whole building is the low hum of the refrigerators in the back. Erwin doesn’t notice how tightly he’s gripping the handle on his milk.

“Are you fucking stalking me?”

Erwin nearly jumps out of his shoes. Levi is standing two feet in front of him.

“How—How did you just—Oh my god you’re like a  _ninja—_ ”

“Don’t you have a rich asshole supermarket that you can go to on the north side of town? Who told you that I work here?”

Despite the fact that Levi literally has to crane his neck upward to make eye contact with him, Erwin is seeing his life flash before his eyes.

“I didn’t know you worked here. I was just, you know… Around,” Erwin says, giving an uncomfortable grin.

“Around?” repeats Levi. To Erwin’s surprise, he actually sounds sort of angry. “What do you mean  _around?_ You don’t live around here. No one lives around here.”

Erwin opens his mouth, pausing a moment before he says anything. “I work around here.”

 _“Shit”,_ Erwin thinks.

“Oh yeah? Where do you work?”

_“SHIT.”_

Erwin scratches the back of his head, glancing off to the side, stalling. “Oh. You know, that, uhh,” He stops— “That, uh, that flower shop down the street. Yeah. My great aunt… knows the person… ‘s cousin… who owns it.”

Levi stares him directly in the eye and blinks slowly. Twice. He bends down, picking up the box of cereal and placing it on the shelf next to Erwin without a word.

Drawing in a soft breath, Levi asks, quietly yet sinisterly, “You mean Diane’s? On Sun Street?”   
Erwin’s heart is beating at the speed of light. His head is swimming, possibly due to lack of oxygen. “Yes?”   
“Oh. So you mean the one that’s been vacant for the last five years. You work there. At that one.”

Erwin can feel his soul escape his body right then and there.

Neither of them say anything for a solid thirty seconds. Levi refuses to break his gaze.

“Look, Levi,” Erwin breathes, “I’m just trying to buy some milk for my mom. Honest.”

Levi exhales. “Sure, whatever, eyebrows,” he rolls his eyes, turning and walking back towards the register. Erwin follows him .

Scanning the milk, Levi mumbles, “That’ll be a buck and two cents.”

Erwin digs into his pocket and pulls out the money, an awkward silence wedged between them. He slides it on the counter and grabs the milk, turning to leave as fast as possible.

He nearly throws the jug into the passenger’s seat of his car. He winces when he realizes the magnitude of his own strength. On his drive home, his brain feels like TV static.

 

_“I guess that could have gone worse.”_


	4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigga warningz: skip this chapter if you dont like reading depictions of abuse
> 
> ty xx

“That fucker. That  _motherfucker_. That stupid motherfucker with the stupid motherfucking eyebrows. And his...fuck. I don’t know, his hair. Whatever.”

Levi is muttering to himself as he stacks an array of canned vegetables on the very top shelf of the canned goods aisle. He’s on a step stool, on his tip toes. He’s got the radio blasting Pat Benatar in the background (it’s after closing time, which means no one will come in, and no one will ever know that he likes to listen to Pat Benatar), but right now he can’t be bothered to even pay attention. He grits his teeth together, a sneer just barely visible on his face.

Stepping down, he picks up the now empty cardboard food box and flattens it, a little too assertively, and makes his way to the back room where he can put it in the recycle bin and hang up his apron.

The ride home is cooler than it has been the last couple of weeks, When he gets home, Kenny isn’t there. It’s nice, he thinks, because he doesn’t have to confine himself to his bedroom for the time being. He spends some time in the back yard—which isn’t a yard at all, it’s really just a dirt plot— working out on the salmon ladder that Hange’s dad had helped him weld a couple years ago. Falling into an old lawn chair, shirtless, hair drenched in sweat and sticking to his forehead, Levi lights a cigarette and gives a long, deep sigh. The sky is a gradient of soft purple-blue, a tinge of orange still clinging to the horizon line. There are no clouds. He sits for a moment, barefooted, smoke in his lungs; his heart is racing but only because he's been exercising. A train whistle sounds behind him.

He closes his eyes for a period of time, but opens them again when he feels a small, sharp pain on the inside of his wrist. A bit of cigarette ash has flaked off onto his skin, but he flicks it off with nonchalance. He stares down at his arms, where little patches of burned or otherwise mutilated skin form faint constellations all the way up to his elbows. They’re difficult to notice at a glance, but they’re there nonetheless.

He pinches the end of his cigarette between his thumb and index finger, holding it just barely over the spot where the ash had touched him. He’s completely still for an entire minute, not even deliberating whether he should do _it_ ; he sits, waiting for nothing, stuck inside his thoughtless head.

He doesn’t do it this time. He flicks his cigarette onto the dirt and heads inside for a shower.

One of the very best things about Kenny being gone, Levi thinks, is that he can turn the radio in the kitchen on as loud as he wants. Sure, it’s one thing to be able to do it at work, but it’s a different experience at home. He lives here, after all, and there’s something so intensely uncomfortable about trying to wash dishes as quietly as possible while Kenny’s watching some shitty program on their shitty TV.

Plus, Levi actually  _really likes_ all that vapid, teeny-bop radio nonsense, despite the fact that he would rather die than admit it. It’s fun! Why isn’t he allowed to have fun?

_I come home, in the morning light,_ _  
_ _My mother says “when you gonna live your life right?”_

He knows it’s stupid, he knows he  _looks_ stupid, with his foot unconsciously tapping and his lips mouthing the words, his shoulders swaying ever so slightly as he bends over the sink, scrubbing plates. But he really can’t help it.

He remembers that he, Hange, and Moblit are taking their bi-monthly drive out into the city to go to a few house shows on Saturday. He nearly smiles for real; they’re certainly no Cyndi Lauper, but there’s something so visceral and cathartic about getting thrashed around in some rando’s basement moshpit, surrounded by dozens of people he doesn’t know.

Levi wonders if he’ll ever be a cohesive person with cohesive interests. He shrugs it off.

As the radio cycles through song after song, he shuts the sink off and stacks the last of the plates into the dish strainer. How in the hell Kenny manages to create so many dishes in a single day, Levi has no idea, but he accepts it. Glancing at the clock on the wall in the kitchen, he furrows his brow: it’s nearly midnight.

 _“Bastard got himself thrown in the drunk tank,”_ he thinks.

For a very brief instance it occurs to Levi that he could be doing his homework for once, but he almost laughs out loud at the thought. Instead, he throws a TV dinner from the freezer into the microwave (suddenly recalling that he hadn’t eaten since that morning) and makes himself a cup of tea. He sits on the floor next to the couch.

He doesn’t really know why he prefers to sit on the floor more than anything else, but he feels in his element here: alone with pop on the radio, sipping expired Lipton out of a broken mug, shoveling God knows what into his mouth. Not a bad night.

A train passes outside and the walls of the trailer begin to shake like usual. The dishes in the strainer rattle against each other. Levi’s head shoots up, gaze locked on the set of plates, eyes wide, and—

He slams his TV dinner on the floor and scrambles into the kitchen, but it’s too late. One of the plates slides out of the strainer and explodes on the tile. He manages to catch the second one, though.

Clutching the second plate in his fingers, he stares down at the floor for a very, very long time. The radio is still playing, but he can hear his own heartbeat. His hands begin to tremble uncontrollably, and he has to set the other plate down on the counter so he doesn’t drop this one, too.

“  _I did it again.”_

He starts chewing on his lip, stare still locked on the smattering of broken pieces strewn about the kitchen floor. He tries to inhale, but his breath hitches.

“Fuck,” he swears out loud. “Fuck, FUCK.”

All at once he drops to his knees and tries to pick up all the pieces, throwing them into the trashcan by the fridge. He stands up again, grabbing his dinner off the ground and throwing it out too, he paces back and forth in the space between the kitchen and the couch.

_“Chances are he won’t even notice. Yeah, I mean, if-if-if— he’s not even going to be home tonight, yeah, he won’t even know. And if he asks I’ll just say I don’t know.”_

He steps into his room and digs into the pocket of his leather jacket, grasping his box of cigarettes so tight that he warps the cardboard. He’s only got two left. He sits down on the ground and lights one, back against his tiny dresser drawer, hands still shaking. His door is cracked open so that a tiny stream of light falls into his room. He can still hear the radio playing in the kitchen.

In his head, he’s running fifty thousand different possible stories to tell Kenny if he notices what happened to the plate when he comes home. Cigarette in his mouth, Levi stares down at the carpet and runs both of his hands through his hair.

_Clock strikes upon the hour_

_And the sun begins to fade,_

_Still enough time to figure out_

_How to chase my blues away…_

Levi hears the front door open. His cigarette falls out of his mouth.

“I come home this late and you’ve got that girly faggot music playing  _again?!”_

Levi doesn’t know if he should say anything. He stands up slowly, balling his hands into fists. He opens his mouth to apologize, but he doesn't remember how to talk. Creeping out of his bedroom, he sees Kenny kicking off his shoes in front of the couch, getting mud on the carpet.

“I… I, um,” Levi chokes out.

Kenny lets out a guttural laugh. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

All the color drains from Levi’s face as he watches Kenny stroll into the kitchen, barefoot now. He watches him survey the countertop, saying nothing. Levi almost breathes a sigh of relief when Kenny turns to the fridge to grab a beer, but—

“  _FUCK!_ God, fucking, what the fuck is this?!  _LEVI!”_

Kenny grits his teeth together and practically snarls in pain; Levi glances down, a jagged chunk of greenish porcelain sticking out of Kenny’s left foot. Blood begins to drip onto the floor.

Levi can’t move. Every nerve in his body is telling him to run, but he can’t. He parts his lips, not knowing how to apologize, standing, staring, wide-eyed, unable to breathe. Bile begins to rise in the back of his throat.

_Oh! I wanna dance with somebody_

_I wanna feel the heat with somebody_

_Yeah! I wanna dance with somebody,_

_With somebody who loves me._

“I… The train… Came by and, I thought, I-I thought they, I thought I picked up all the pieces—” the words come out in a desperate whimper. He can feel his eyes welling up with tears. “It was the same, the same colour as the tile, I-I don’t—”

“Shut up, kid,” Kenny growls, lifting his foot off the ground and yanking the shard out in one quick motion. He winces, but Levi knows the guy’s been through a hell of a lot worse. Blood smears across the tile as he limps toward his nephew. The ground beneath Levi’s feet begins to sway at the sight of it.

“Kenny,” Levi murmurs, “Come on, I’ve got school tomorrow.”

But Kenny grabs Levi by the shoulder and slams his body against the floor. Levi’s head hits the tile, a searing pain shooting through his skull and down his jaw. He loses his eyesight for a moment, his body going limp, desperately trying to stay conscious. Kenny hoists him up by the collar of his shirt, crouching down over him, pressing Levi’s back against the side of the counter. Sliding his hand over Levi’s mouth, he bends Levi’s head backwards, forcefully, almost mechanically.

_I need a man who'll take a chance,_

_On a love that burns hot enough to last._

_So when the night falls,_

_My lonely heart calls…_

Levi writhes against Kenny’s grip, but he’s too weak, too dizzy. His throat is exposed and Kenny’s fingers squeeze his jaw so tight that it  _burns_ , that his bones might shatter any second. He tries to open his mouth to beg but he can’t talk, he can barely breathe. His own fingers are scratching claw marks into the tile. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated, he can’t stop himself from crying now—it’s as if the tears are being choked out of him. They dribble down his face as he stares up at the ceiling, vision blurry, not a coherent thought in his head. Every inch of his body seizes up as Kenny slides a pair of fingers into Levi’s mouth.

Levi feels a sharp edge press against his throat, recoiling, he accidentally smacks the back of his head against the counter. He glances down, Kenny’s stare locked on him with an strange, animalistic intensity. Levi tries shaking his head in protest, but Kenny twists the point of the shard against his skin. Levi can’t help but let out a pathetic sob.

_Don’t you wanna dance with me, baby?_

“I didn’t really wanna do this,” Kenny murmurs.

Levi’s throat is wet; he can’t tell if the blood he’s feeling is Kenny’s or his own. Kenny’s fingers graze across Levi’s teeth, his gums, the underside of his tongue. They taste like salt. Suddenly Levi can’t feel anything anymore; suddenly he’s not inside himself. For a brief second his whole body relaxes involuntarily.

Kenny’s fingers slide down further, further, no, too far— Levi gags violently and Kenny tears his hand away. Leaning over to the side, heaving, Levi swallows again and again to keep himself from throwing up.

Kenny says something that Levi doesn’t hear. Levi barely notices him raising his arm before he’s slicing a deep, quick gash onto Levi’s left cheek. Levi practically screams.

_… With somebody who loves me._

Blood begins to spill down the side of his face as he stands up, Kenny still on the floor; Levi thinks he’s laughing to himself, but he doesn’t have any time to think about it.

He practically stumbles into his bedroom, locking the door behind him, grabbing his jacket and pulling his boots on without any socks. He stands on top of his bed, pulling his window open with shaky hands, kicking the window screen so hard that it falls out in one blow. He climbs out, head throbbing, blood dripping off his chin and onto the collar of his shirt.

He runs as fast as he possibly can.

The only thought in his head is “  _Hange”._

The inside of his mouth is numb, but the taste of blood seeps in through his lips and his stomach convulses inside him. Sprinting across the train tracks, he knows that he’s only got two miles to Hange’s house. His heart is screaming, he struggles to breathe, but he can’t stop. He wouldn't look back if is life depended on it.

Yet somewhere along the way his body wins the fight over instinct and he collapses, hands and knees in the dirt, retching uncontrollably until he actually  _does_ throw up. Gasping for air, the pain in his head and on his cheek are brutal, unforgiving, and overwhelming.

The night air is still; there are crickets chirping. There are a thousand stars in the sky.

Levi stands up, wobbly, wiping his mouth off on his sleeve, blood smearing across his face. He’d run, but he’d pass out.

Some half an hour later he ends up at Hange’s, where he almost kills himself climbing over the chain link fence. He sneaks around to their side yard, where Hange’s bedroom is. Levi pounds a fist against their bedroom window as hard and loud as he can manage—for a hopeless moment nothing happens, and Levi’s knees almost buckle underneath him— but then a pair of curious eyes peer out at him from behind a set of blinds.

Hange pulls them back and opens the window.

Hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, not yet wearing their glasses, Hange whispers, “Levi? What the  _hell_ , man, it’s like two a.m., I thought you were a fucking serial killer.”

“Can I come in?”

Hange grabs their glasses and puts them on, eyes widening when they see Levi clearly. “What… Levi, what happened to you?” They ask, softly, now completely serious.

“Can I come in or not?” Levi repeats, his throat hoarse.

Hange blinks. “Yeah, you can come in,” they say, moving out of the way so Levi can swing his legs over the windowsill. He practically slides straight onto the carpet.

“I’m gonna… I need you to stitch me up, dude, real fuckin’ bad,” he wheezes, turning and showing Hange his brand new injury.

Hange flicks a lamp on to get a closer look at Levi’s face. “Holy shit, man, I— I don’t know if I should—”

“ _Hange,”_ Levi grits through his teeth, “Just, just do me a solid here, please?”

Hange swallows apprehensively. “Fine. But you have to tell me what happened. And I don’t want you to lie about it,” they say, “Take your jacket off, try not to make any noise, either, ‘cause my dad’s home.”

Levi sits up and nods. “Yeah, okay. Fine.”

Hange motions to Levi to follow them into the bathroom. It’s cramped, but it’s what they have to work with. Grabbing a first-aid kit and a bottle of rubbing alcohol from under the sink cabinet, Hange asks, “Was it Kenny?”

Levi hesitates. “Yeah. It was,” he murmurs.

“Bend over the sink, close your eyes” Hange orders, “You want a towel to bite? This is gonna hurt real fuckin’ bad,” they say.

“I’m fine,” Levi insists, and Hange starts pouring alcohol solution into the gash on Levi’s cheek. He tenses up, biting his lip so hard that the skin breaks.

“You good?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he lies, voice strained.

Hange turns the faucet on, scrubbing dried blood off Levi’s neck and face. “It’s still bleeding, dude. This is really fuckin’ deep.”

“So then  _fix it,”_ Levi snarls.

Hange presses a thumb onto Levi’s cut.

“Ow, fuck,  _fuck,_ Hange—”

“Listen, Levi,” Hange snaps, “You come to my house in the middle of the fucking night on a Wednesday, with barely any explanation, you ask me to  _literally_ clean your wounds for you—”

“Fuck, fine, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Levi interrupts. Hange goes quiet.

“ _I’m_ sorry,” they sigh.

Neither of them say anything as Hange disinfects Levi’s cut a second time. The alcohol stings his bottom lip as it cascades down the side of his face.

“Did anything else happen?” Hange asks.

“I have a concussion,” Levi says. “I totally, fuckin’, blew chunks on the side of the road when I ran over here—”

“You  _ran?”_

“I mean, I ran halfway and walked the second half. I guess.”

Hange shuts the water off, saying, “C’mon.”

The two head back to Hange’s bedroom where Levi crashes on Hange’s bed. Hange sits criss-cross, dabbing Levi’s face with gauze before they begin stitching him up.

“Why’d he do it?”

Levi has to take a moment to think before he answers, but he retells the story with relative accuracy. He leaves out the part with Kenny’s fingers.

Pawing around in the first aid kit, about to make their first suture, Hange asks, “So he got his blood in your cut?”

Levi draws in a sharp breath as Hange sticks him. He doesn’t understand the question. “Yeah. I guess so.”

“Hm,” they reply. They don’t say anything else.

“…I don’t know why that mat—”

“Shh, don’t move, you’re gonna make me mess it up.”

Levi shuts up and tries to stay as still as possible. His ears are ringing. His hands are balled in fists to keep them from trembling, but Hange knows what he’s doing. Levi hates it.

A sense of disgust washes over him. In his mouth, he can still feel, still  _taste_ … He flinches again at Hange’s needlework. No matter how unpleasant it feels on the outside, he can’t shake off the filth caking his insides, growing in his chest, the inside of his throat, parasitic, rotting…

He swallows, but he doesn’t have anything left to throw up.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hange looks down at him with a furrowed brow.

“What did you mean by asking me that?” Levi presses on. “Why would you want to know?”

Hange casts their glance off to the side, breaking eye contact. “I was just… I don’t know,” they say, grabbing a pair of tiny medical scissors and snipping the end of the thread. “You know. With your mom and stuff.”

Levi sits up, staring Hange straight in the face, but Hange won’t look at him. “What do you mean? What about her?”

Hange starts collecting pieces of bloody gauze off the bed, and stands up to throw them away. They don’t answer. Picking up the medical scissors, they mumble, as quietly as possible, “I mean, like, how she died.”

Levi frowns. “Kenny doesn’t have AIDS, Hange,” he replies, flatly.

Wringing their hands together, still refusing to look Levi in the eye, Hange stammers, “But... how do you  _know?”_

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Levi raises his voice, “I know because I know, I—”

“But they’re related, isn’t, isn’t it like, a thing? Where if you—”

“I don’t know, I’m not a fucking scientist—”

“How do you know he wasn’t using too? When you moved in with him, I don’t—how do you know he didn’t—”

“Didn’t  _what?”_ Levi snaps.

Hange stops. Their voice is wavering. “I don’t know, Levi. Your uncle is a sick, sick person. I don’t know.”

Levi bites his tongue, head dropping, gazing down at the insides of his wrists.

“You have any gum?” he whispers, hair hanging over his eyes.

Hange stares at him, unsure of how to respond. “Yeah. I think. In the kitchen”

The silence between them is heavy and oppressive.

“Spearmint?” He asks.

“Wintergreen.”

 

Gnashing a stick of mint gum between his teeth, sitting on the floor, Levi stares at the moon out Hange’s window.

“Don’t go to sleep. If you sleep with a concussion, you’ll fall into a coma. Or something freaky like that,” Hange says, taking their glasses off, crawling into bed.

“Yeah, I know,” he replies, his tone cool and uncaring.

“Levi,” Hange yawns, “Levi, I’m serious. If you die I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”

“We’re all gonna die some day, Hange,” Levi says.

He’s staring at his hands. They’re still shaking.


	5. Time After Time

“Ha—and then, and then Erwin’s like—” Mike can barely speak without bursting into laughter, “He’s like, ‘captain, there’s no perch in this lake, they aren’t even native to this area’. And, and the counsellor’s all, ‘yeah there is, I’m the counsellor and I’m a huge asshole, blah blah blah’, but like, we’re fuckin, I don’t know, thirteen-fourteen? So we have literally no sense of authority (except Erwin) and so we’re literally sitting at this shitty lake for like three hours, trying to catch perch. And this asshole. He gets  _mad_ at us because, uh, we aren’t catching any goddamn fish—”

“I tried to tell him!” Erwin interjects.

“ … So we’re all super pissed off, and at this point we’re all beginning to think that Erwin is right—”

“Which I was.”

“And so at fuckin’, five o'clock in the afternoon, we head back to camp and scout leader’s pissed, everyone’s pissed, and he’s being super passive aggressive towards us like ‘oh, everyone troop 133 got  _their_ badges today… ‘, so that makes  _me_ even more mad. So that night I wake Erwin up and I’m like, ‘hey, buddy, I’ve got the best fuckin idea.’”

“I hate this part.”

“This is the  _best_ part, what are you talking about? We sneak into the mess hall, and, I don’t know who the hell was running the place, but the freezer was unlocked. And we find this giant frozen fish, it wasn’t even a perch, but it’s not important,”

“It was a trout.”

“So we sneak back into our cabin. And we manage to hide the thing  _in_ the scout leader’s bedsheets, Godfather style.”

“Like with the horse head.”

“And the next morning, the entire cabin smelled like fish, and it was so fucking gross, but it was so worth it, and nobody ever found out that it was us. Erwin almost confessed and I had to physically restrain him not to.”

“You bribed me too, I think.”

“With candy bars! I brought them even though we weren’t supposed to.”

Nanaba stares at them for a moment, eyes darting back and forth between the two, putting a potato chip between her teeth. “You guys were certainly something.”

Mike is almost offended. “Come on, how could you not think that’s funny?”

“Fish are disgusting,” she deadpans. Erwin realizes that she’s only doing this to annoy him.

“Oh my god, you’re so  _lame,”_ Mike complains. It’s working.

It’s Thursday and it’s lunchtime, and the three of them are sitting on the bleachers outside. A light breeze tousels their hair, but it’s so nice out that it doesn’t bother any of them. It’s a bit overcast, but it isn’t too gloomy, either. Nanaba is leaning over, elbows on her knees, holding her chin in her hand, watching the football players mess around on the field. Erwin is gazing up at the sparse patches of blue in the sky.

“You think it’s gonna rain?” he asks.

“It will,” she answers, too cool to look at him. “At least that’s what my dad says.”

“Yeah, well your dad also said that it was gonna rain last week, and it didn’t,” Mike rolls his eyes.

“You know how weathermen are, Mikey. They pretend that they know everything and then when they run into something they don’t know they have to make something else up to compensate. And then when anyone says anything about it, they make something up then, too, and then when your stupid, airhead mom starts taking quaaludes recreationally, they pretend not to know about that, even though it’s super obvious, and then—”

“Dude,” Mike stops her. She sighs dejectedly, raising a hand and pouting at the sight of her fingernails.

“I need a manicure.”

Erwin isn’t sure what to say.

“You… got something you wanna talk about, Nan?” Mike asks her.

“No, not really,” she replies, her tone bored as ever. “He’s a scorpio and she’s an aquarius, that’s really all that it comes down to.”

Mike and Erwin nearly fall backwards in their seats.

“Nanaba, you can’t possibly believe…” Erwin starts, but he doesn’t bother to finish.

She glances back at him over her shoulder, the same cold look in her eyes she’s always got. She eyes him up and down, flicking her bangs off her forehead, wrist layered in blue jelly bracelets.

“You stick your foot in your mouth pretty often for a Libra,” she smirks.

“Oh sure, fine,” Erwin says playfully. “What sign are  _you_?”

“Like I’ll ever tell.”

“You’re a gemini,” Mike pipes up.

“  _Mikey,”_ she groans in a nasal, high pitched voice. “You’re always ruining everything.”

“Please, Nanaba, you know none of that shit’s real,” he says.

She swings her legs around the metal platform to face both boys, jelly sandals landing on the bleachers with a soft  _clunk._ “Says you,” she blinks— a fat droplet of water smacks her on the tip of her nose, spraying water on the rest of her face. Erwin and Mike hold back snickers.

“Oh, fuck me,” she hisses under her breath. “I’m going inside. This is going to ruin my hair.”

She stands, grabbing her lunchbox, saying, “Don’t take too long, boys. You’ll get wet.”

Mike starts laughing, strangely. Erwin can’t tell if it’s genuine or forced.

“Ha! Haha, ha, ahah, right, yeah…”

“Your face is kind of red, Mike,” Erwin says.

“Yeah?” Mike turns to him, residual smile still faint on his lips.

He looks a lot different than he did three years ago, but he doesn’t look bad. Sure, Erwin thinks, that mop of blond hair isn’t necessarily the best choice, but somehow it’s befitting of him. He used to be so skinny, too. And that facial hair— Erwin just can’t hate it, no matter how much Nanaba complains. Mike never had to shave when they were growing up, and Erwin would tease him about it every now and then. “  _You’re just a little young is all,”_ Erwin would say, and Mike would reply with something like, “  _You were literally born less than a month before me!”_

But look who’s winning now, Erwin thinks, he’s taller, more charismatic, better  _looking…_

(That last one is utterly untrue, but Erwin doesn’t spend enough time looking in the mirror.)

“What are you staring at?” Mike asks.

Erwin blinks. A nauseating pang of guilt twists in his stomach. “I, uh—” he starts, but a clap of thunder and a sudden downpour causes him to jump up in his seat.

“Shit!” Mike stands, and both of them grab their things and make a mad dash inside, slipping and almost falling more than once on the metal bleachers. The two of them part ways with warm smiles. Erwin feels a tension in his chest that he can’t shake.

Levi isn’t in chemistry. Erwin wonders if he’s ditching.

For gym, the teacher puts on an “educational video” for the class to watch because of the unexpected rain outside. Erwin pays attention to it, no one else does. When the bell rings at the end of the day, a muddle of sleepy groans ripples through the classroom as student after student lifts their head off their desks. Erwin winces when the teacher flicks on the lights.

After school, Erwin finds himself in the library hunting around for books about British colonialism for a report that’s due in three weeks. It had been assigned to them that morning. After he collects what appears to be an entire tower of books, he makes his way to the back of the library where the study tables are.

No one else is there but him, and those two that Nanaba had pointed out on the first day—the odd couple who’re always hanging  around Levi Ackerman. What were their names?

Erwin does his best not to peer over, but they’re playing chess, and now his interest is piqued. But it also doesn’t help that the girl in the glasses isn’t subtle about eyeing him.

Erwin tries not to blush. He’s not sure if they’re attracted to him or angry with him, but he’s not particularly thrilled with either option. He brushes by them quickly and sets his books down on a desk, facing away from them.

“Hange,” Erwin hears a faint whisper from behind. “Stop being creepy. It’s your turn.”

“Do you think Levi would get pissed if you and me and blondie over there had a—”

“Oh my God  _,_ stop talking.”

Erwin’s cheeks are steaming. He sits, hunched over an open encyclopedia, but the words aren’t translating into his brain. At some point he had gotten used to the sound of people whispering about him, but it had barely happened since he moved away. He adjusts his glasses, waiting for more of their conversation.

“Are you  _disagreeing_ with me?”

“No,” says the other voice, almost sternly, “But you’re being kind of loud.”

Hange clears their throat. Erwin can hear the taping of chess pieces.

“Are you fucking kidding me Moblit?”

He snorts. “Who’s the master now?”

“Me. I’m still the master.”

Moblit lets out a low laugh, and Erwin furrows his brow at the nature of their conversation.

He decides that he doesn’t want to stay anymore. Grabbing his books in both arms, he stands abruptly, pushing his chair back and turning, trying to avoid Hange’s gaze.

But just as Erwin thinks he’s about to escape, Hange’s voice chimes, “Hey, you’re Erwin, right?”

Erwin turns around with a crooked smile. “Yeah. That’s me.”

He notices that Moblit looks a tad mortified. Hange is slouching against the back of the chair, legs open like a man would sit. Glancing down at their chessboard, Erwin takes a survey of their game, counting the number of pieces still in play.

“You know, um,” he says, thoughtlessly, before Hange can even reply, “If you move your knight to D6, I think, you can take out two of his pawns and put him in check. I know that leaves you open, but he’d have no other choice but to move somewhere else, or risk losing the game.”

Both Hange and Moblit are silent for a moment, a little bit stunned, eyes darting back and forth over the board, Hange furrowing their brow and evaluating his tactic.

“He’s right,” Moblit grumbles.

“He  _is_ right!” Hange beams, sliding their chess piece across the squares, taking out two of Moblit’s, quietly giggling. “Hey, come sit with us,” Hange turns back to Erwin. “You consider joining chess club?”

Erwin obliges the suggestion hesitantly, setting his books down on the floor and pulling up a chair. “I did chess club for freshman and sophomore year at my old school, but then some, ah, some stuff kinda happened. So I quit. I’m too busy for extra curriculars now, though.”

He observes the two of them, wondering when something catastrophic will happen, but they keep acting like relatively normal people. Sure, the two of them are a couple of geeks, but they’re not malicious geeks.

“Aw, man,” Hange sighs. “That’s lame. Whatever though, we’re still the shit.”

“Unless our funding gets cut and we have to disband,” Moblit interjects, bitterly.

“Don’t talk like that,” Hange snaps. “You’re going to jinx it.”

“They’re going to disband chess team?” Erwin asks, leaning forward, accidentally empathizing with the last (well, second-to-last) two people on Earth he thought he’d care about.

“It’s just what we’ve heard, nothing official yet. Apparently they want to put new lights in on the football field, even though we got new lights like, two years ago,” Hange says.

“That’s terrible!”

“We know. It’s all we have going for us. We were planning on finishing strong senior year, going to nationals, taking home a trophy. But I guess no one cares about chess club,” Moblit sighs.

“Well,” Erwin replies, “If I had any way to make other people care about chess, I would. But I don’t really have much influence around here,” he says, sheepishly. “You guys are friends with Levi, right? You should ask him to hype up chess. People listen to him.”

Hange and Moblit make eye contact at the mention of Levi’s name. Glancing back at Erwin, Hange says, “It’s a nice thought, but I don’t think it would happen.”

“Although… ” Moblit begins, trailing off, locking eyes with Hange for a second time. Erwin watches the two of them have a complete conversation using only facial expressions. Hange raises one eyebrow; Moblit gives a sort of unsure grimace-smile. No one says anything out loud for about fifteen seconds.

“So, uh, is Levi sick today or something?” Erwin asks.

Hange glances sideways at the question, pushing their glasses up their nose. “Yeah. He’s fine though,” they reply, clearing their throat. Erwin notices Moblit shifting.

“And he doesn’t hate you, by the way,” Hange adds. “He’s just kind of irritable like that.”

“Oh,” Erwin responds. He looks down at the table for a moment. “I did feel real bad about the first day of school.”

“Yeah, well, he dumped fucking chemicals all over you, so I’d say you’re even.”

Erwin nearly laughs. “Yeah, I almost forgot about that…”

“I was pissed at him for that, you know,” Hange continues. Erwin is shocked at how open they are. “But he told me he knew it wouldn’t have actually hurt you, so whatever, I guess. The guy can be a fucking gremlin sometimes,” they say, humor evident in their tone, “But we love him a lot.”

Erwin smiles softly at Hange’s tenderness. “You guys been friends for long?”

“Oh yeah!” Hange leans back, kicking their dusty Chuck Taylors up onto the table, scattering a few chess pieces off the board.

“Hange—” Moblit whines, but they cut him off.

“The game’s over. I refuse to let you win,” they chuckle. Moblit frowns and begins putting the pieces away, dejectedly. Attention back on Erwin now, Hange continues, “Yeah, I think we met Levi in… third or fourth grade? Shit, it’s been awhile, I don’t really remember. We bonded ‘cause he told me he didn’t believe in Santa Clause. Little shit thought he had me.”

“Oh?”

“Hm? Oh, right, yeah— I’m Jewish. Sort of. I haven’t been to temple in ages, but you know. Whatever.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah, yeah. He’s been stuck to me like a barnacle since then. When he joined football, we were afraid he’d ditch us to go be popular, but that never really happened, I guess.”

Erwin pauses before he responds, the image of Levi’s cold stare suddenly at the forefront of his thoughts.

“You okay?” Hange asks.

Erwin glances back at them, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose, awkwardly. “Um, yeah.”

“You were frowning.”

“Was I? Sorry, I didn’t realize,” he admits.

Hange gives him an odd look. They open their mouth to speak, but Erwin changes the subject quickly— “You guys play D&D?”

Moblit, eyes widening with enthusiasm, interjecting almost immediately, “Hell  _yeah_ we play D&D.”

“We used to,” Hange corrects him. “Not so much any more. We don’t have enough people. Levi thinks it’s stupid.”

“Yeah, well, I mean, if you wanted to…” Erwin begins, glancing down at the empty chessboard and pressing the tips of his index fingers together, “Well, I haven’t asked him yet. But my friend Mike and I used to play when we were younger. So like, I dunno, you guys seem kinda cool. Maybe we could hang out and play sometime. Or something.”

“For real?” Hange nearly exclaims, “You’re not messing with us, are you?”

Erwin furrows his brow. “Why would I be messing with you?”

A strange, closed-mouth smile spreads across Hange’s lips. They look over at Moblit again, who says, casually, “Oh, you’d be surprised. But, uh, yeah, I think we could, it sounds like a lot of fun.”

Erwin smiles like a burst of sunshine, teeth shining, eyes slightly widened in a state of near-childlike joy. For a moment, the memory of Rosewall passes through his mind, but he tells himself that today is a different day— the thought passes quickly. The three of them sit around for a few more minutes, making small talk about school, but eventually Erwin’s watch beeps and he finds himself scrambling out of the library and on his way home.

(Though, of course he doesn’t leave without a warm and eager goodbye.)

In his car, he can’t stop grinning, but there’s an unfamiliar feeling glowing hot in his chest. At first he can’t discern what it is, but he realizes, soon, blushingly— it’s pride.

“  _I really did that, didn’t I?”_

Pulling into his driveway and practically leaping out of his truck, he swings his backpack over his shoulder and heads inside, in a bit of a hurry so that he isn’t late for his shift at work. His smile, still plastered onto his face, vanishes completely at the sight of his mother in the kitchen.

Sitting at the kitchen table, perfect posture, her lightly manicured fingers are still resting on their cordless phone. Her hair, falling over her shoulders, is more lax than it usually is but still retains some of its natural bounce. Erwin can’t read her expression— she’s staring down at the phone, bright blue eyes darting back and forth, like she’s thinking.

“Mom?”   
She looks up, Erwin now sees a twinge of concern in her eyes. The corners of her lips turn upwards, but Erwin knows she isn’t happy.

“Hi honey,” she replies, gently, in a sort of sigh.

Slipping off his backpack, Erwin approaches her hesitantly, unsure. “Is something wrong?”

“Come sit down,” She tells him, sweetly, yet her tone is chilling and melancholic.

Erwin’s heart rattles inside him. “Mom, you’re freaking me out right now,” he says.

“It’s bad news,” she lowers her voice.

“What? About what? Is dad okay? Is it your job—?”

“We’re fine, he’s fine, I’m fine, everything's fine here,” his mother cuts him off. “Please, just, sit down, honey,” she almost pleads, a burning intensity in her eyes.

He pulls up a chair, placing his hand over hers on the table. She won’t say anything; Erwin leans forward. “Mom…”

She opens her mouth, looking him in the eyes and glancing away repeatedly, she squeezes his hand. “Keith’s sister called while you were at school today,” she murmurs. “Honey, he died this morning.”

He doesn’t respond; his gaze is fixed on the lines of wood running across the table. His hand goes lax against hers.

“Oh.”

After ten seconds of overwhelming numbness, Erwin can feel his chest collapse into a vast, empty chasm, hollow and bloody and dark, he clenches his jaw, unsure of what else to say.

“I’m so sorry, Erwin,” his mother comforts, but he’s barely listening.

He looks up at her, glassy-eyed. “They didn’t… bother to call beforehand?”

“She said it was sudden,” she replies. “No one was expecting it. Nobody knew, not even the doctors.”

“How could they not have known?” his voice cracks, “It—it’s so obvious. You can  _tell_. You can tell when someone’s only got days, or hours even.”

There’s a brief, tense pause. “It’s just… not like that all the time, honey. You can’t always tell,” she says, placing a hand on his shoulder.

But he stands, turning around to head upstairs.

“I could.”

 

And the next day is a blank, noiseless blur. At lunch, he knows that Mike and Nanaba can tell. Unsure of how to address it, they keep glancing at each other— they remind Erwin of Hange and Moblit. Half of him wishes they’d just ask what’s wrong, but the other half dreads making the explanation.

He hardly notices that Levi is gone again that day.

The weather is abysmal. Erwin supposes that Nanaba’s father was correct. The day after that, he lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, heavy-hearted yet dry-eyed. In one swift motion he sits up and swings his legs over the edge of his bed. He pulls his shoes on, grabs his car keys, almost anxiously— he heads downstairs and tells his mom that he’s going in to work.

“You don’t have to, Erwin,” she says.

“But I really think I do.”

The rain is the worst it’s been all week. He usually hates the rain, but right now he can’t think anything of it; he’s not thinking much of anything. When he arrives at the clinic, he replaces Karen at the front desk almost immediately. He tells her she can go home if she wants to.

One hour passes. Maybe two. Erwin isn’t paying attention, he’s sorting through names and phone numbers in a rolodex.

But then he hears the sound of rain become clearer for a moment—someone’s opened the door. Glancing up, Erwin’s heart seizes, and he stands abruptly out of reflex.

“  _You?”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! blease leave a nice comment or something. please. my family is starving


	6. Friday I'm In Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello assholes
> 
> i finished writing this chapter instead of doing homework
> 
> you are welcome

Levi wakes with a start, nearly catapulting himself off Hange’s bed as they enter their bedroom. His mouth is dry, his head aches; the cut on his face feels warm to the touch.

“You? Sleeping? That’s a first,” Hange throws their backpack into a corner on top of a pile of dirty laundry, pulling back their curtains and letting the afternoon sunlight flood the room.

Levi opens his mouth, not to speak, but to adjust a crick in his jaw.

“There’s drool on your chin,” Hange points out. 

Levi gives an unintelligible half groan, wiping it off with the back of his sleeve— well, not his sleeve; he’s wearing one of Hange’s shirts.

“How you feelin’?” they ask.

“Eh,” Levi mumbles.

“My dad feed you?”

“Yeah.”

“Is he home?”

“I’unno.”

“Have you even left my room for the past two days?”

He turns to Hange, eyelids drooping, eyes themselves slightly bloodshot, saying, “Do you want me to?”

Hange sighs, kicking off their sneakers. “You can stay here as long as you want, dude. I’m just making sure you’re not, like… deteriorating.”

“I’m fine,” Levi insists, monotone. “I’ll probably go home tomorrow.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

“You gonna come to school tomorrow, too?”

Levi hesitates.

“Dude,” Hange says, “You have to. Your grades are gonna plummet.”

“Yeah?” he replies, irritated, “What do I care? I’m not gonna go to college anyways.”

Hange is silent for a moment. “Do you _ want _ another truancy charge?”

“Oh, what, like you’re gonna narc on me? Please.”

Hange grits their teeth together, turning away from Levi, unzipping their backpack and beginning to pull out folders. “Have you thought any more about what I said?” they change the subject.

“About what?” he asks, unsure.

“About getting tested.”

Levi stops. Hange turns back to him, expectantly, but now his gaze is fixed on his hands, resting on the sheets of Hange’s bed.

“Levi…”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

He waits, thinking for a moment before replying. “I don’t…” he says, trailing off, “I don’t know what the point would be.”

Hange furrows their brow, an expression of disbelief appearing on their face. “What the hell are you talking about? The point? The  _ point  _ is to know if you’re  _ dying _ or not.”

“It’s not like I’d know what to do with that information.”

Hange almost recoils, taken aback. “You know, get help, get medicine, something!”

“I can’t  _ afford _ medicine. And even if I could I wouldn’t want it.”

“I’m sure there are ways,” they retort.   


Levi answers with a blank, tired expression.

“Come on, man,” Hange makes a final, desperate plea. “I just— I just think you should. Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know,”  they pause, collecting their thoughts, “But I am asking you to.”   


He glances upward, defeated. “Fine. Okay.”

 

…

 

He grinds his third cigarette into the pavement with his boot. The rain is absolutely belligerent, but he’s taken refuge under the decrepit awning of a familiar, vacant flower shop. Its windows are busted in. Jagged glass remains jutting out of its window frames, with bits and pieces strewn all about the inside. The mess itself is chaotic and wild, but looking in, the dampness and decay is pitifully wretched. The only thing even remotely resembling flowers in it is the black mildew consuming the underside of its floorboards. It’s exhausted. It wants to be put out of its misery.

Levi is nauseous. He knows why he’s here, but he hates that he is. He wants to be mad at Hange for convincing him to come, but he physically cannot bring himself to do it. He’s got too many thoughts in his head. He’s eerily still, eyes fixed on an indistinct spot on the ground. At least his hands are still, it occurs to him.

You could just wait until it closes. But then again, you sorta promised, didn’t you? Dammit.

He takes a massive breath, about to bite the bullet, but he hesitates. And then he does it.

Oh, but how he immediately regrets it.

“You?” says the tall, handsome blonde from behind the front desk. He stands up. He looks perplexed, and then he looks a little bit afraid, for some reason.

The clinic door shuts behind Levi, who stands, slightly wet and wide-eyed, frozen and staring at Erwin.

“Levi?”

Levi doesn’t say anything. Erwin steps out from behind the desk.   


Every sinew, every muscle in Levi’s body suddenly tightens and locks him in place. He’s a prisoner in his own body. The walls, off-white and nearly empty, seem to widen around him. He can’t pinpoint what he’s feeling at all, but he knows he doesn’t like it.

“What are you doing here?”   


At that phrase, Levi shoves his hands into his pockets and uses all the strength in his being to turn around and leave. But he feels a hand on his wrist.

A bolt of lightning shoots through his arm, he flinches. He faces Erwin again. A moment passes.   


“...Don’t touch me,” he finally says.

Erwin releases his grip and steps back, hands up. He apologizes.

“Uh. Yeah,” are the only two words in English that Levi knows right now.

“Did you need something?” Erwin asks, his voice dreadfully sweet like always, “Are you okay?” 

His tone is so genuinely soft that Levi is automatically suspicious. He still doesn’t understand who Erwin is. “What are  _ you _ doing here?” he throws the question back at him.   


“I— work here. I mean, I volunteer here,” he stammers, awkwardly.

“Of course you do,” Levi mutters under his breath.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Erwin responds, stepping back, an air of nervousness about him. Levi notices it, but he doesn’t understand it.

“You know,” he replies, bitter sounding, “Your whole boy scout thing. Pretending you’re perfect,” he casts his glance off to the side, shoving his hands in his pockets.

Erwin furrows his thick eyebrows, squinting, an expression of utter confusion on his face. “What are y—”

But Levi cuts him off. “Isn’t there somebody else I could talk to? Someone who isn’t you?”

“No, actually, there isn’t,” he says firmly.

There’s another tense bout of silence between them. Levi won’t return eye contact; he can feel Erwin glaring at him.

“I… Need to know if… I have…  _ it _ . Or not,” Levi admits, quietly, forcing out the words like he’s forcing himself to vomit. He glances up reluctantly, eyes finally meeting Erwin’s.

Erwin’s shoulders seem to relax— not in relief, but in disbelief, maybe. His lips part like he’s going to say something, but it takes him a while. His eyes look like he’s hurting.

“Levi...Oh, shit,” he murmurs.

“I’m not gay or anything,” Levi blurts out suddenly, as if he forgot to mention it earlier. “I was in a fight. Someone else’s blood got in me, I guess. I’m only here ‘cause my friend told me I should.”

Erwin blinks, saying nothing, and returns to his space behind the desk. Levi shuffles forward after him.

“Do you know where you are?” Erwin asks, bitingly, pulling a set of papers from a manilla file, “Do you really think that I would care about that?”

Levi shifts on his feet, a little unnerved by Erwin’s change in demeanor.

“Can I get your full name and address?” Erwin asks.

Levi doesn’t answer. He’s staring at a poster on the wall.

“Levi?” Erwin presses.

He returns his attention to Erwin. He places his fingertips on the edge of the counter, the sleeves of his jacket covering most of his hands. “Uh. Do I have to?”   


“Kind of, yeah. We need to know if you have health insurance and we need to be able to mail you your results,” Erwin says.

Levi goes quiet again. A web of knots begins to fester in the pit of his stomach; the idea of Kenny opening his mail nearly causes a visceral reaction in him. He clenches his jaw. He glances to the side for the millionth time tonight. “I, uh,” he mumbles, fingernails digging into the surface, “I don’t think I can do this.”

“What? Levi, if you’ve got—”

“I know, I know, I don’t care— I just, I can’t.”

“You don’t care? What do you mean you don’t care? Do you have any idea what HIV even means?” Erwin’s tone becomes increasingly hostile.

The question catches Levi off guard. “ _ Yeah _ , I do, actually,” he snarls, raising his voice. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Erwin backs off, taking a breath, relaxing. “I’m sorry,” he says, less angry now, but stern, “But then you should know what it would mean. If you had it.”

Levi lets his head drop, and he stares down at his fingertips. A wave of grief washes over him but he doesn’t know where it’s coming from. For an instance he wonders if he’s going to cry— but he doesn’t. It isn’t that kind of sadness. His lungs ache.

“I didn’t mean to get mad at you. I had a shitty day,” Erwin says, gently.

“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter,” Levi replies, still looking down. “I don’t have health insurance.”

“That’s okay, too, we’ve got things that cover that.”

“I still… can’t give you my address. I wouldn't even want to give you my full name but I know you know it already.”

Erwin glances down at some documents, tentatively. He chews on his bottom lip for a moment. “Are you sure?” He asks. “I don’t mean to sound mean, honest. I’m serious. Is it really, genuinely so important that you don’t?”

—And he doesn’t sound mean, he sounds concerned. For some reason it makes Levi’s heart sting. He pauses briefly, lips parted, fingers curled slightly.

“Yeah,” he nearly whispers. He looks back up at Erwin again, dark hair fallen into his face.

“Well, I…” Erwin starts, inhaling, playing with an idea bouncing around inside his head. “Maybe. If you wanted. I could put you down under a fake name.”

Levi doesn’t know how to respond.

“I guess I could use my address too. I could just give it to you later.”

Still, he’s silent.

“I’d rather do that than do nothing,” Erwin finally adds.

“Why?” Levi spits out, abruptly. “I don’t get it. Why would you do that? Isn’t that illegal or something?”

“Do you have a problem with illegality all of a sudden?”

“I— No, I have a problem with— it’s  _ me _ .”

“Yeah? So what if it’s you? You think that because you were an asshole to me I’m gonna be fine letting you die of AIDS?”

“I— Well—”

“Do you know how many friends I’ve had who died of AIDS?”

The words fall out of his mouth almost involuntarily— “We aren’t friends.” He knows it’s true, but he didn’t mean to say it like that. He doesn’t know why he said it at all.

Erwin clenches his jaw. “I don’t  _ care _ ,” he nearly grits through his teeth, slowly, tensely. At first Levi thinks he’s just pissed off, but the longer he looks at him, the more genuinely upset he seems. 

“What is _wrong_ with you?” Levi says.

Erwin glances down at a file, abruptly, like a dog would. “Nothing,” he replies, fingers stepping through the pages. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything. If you really wanna go, then go.”

“No, I’ll— I’ll do it,” Levi stammers. He cringes at himself in the back of his head.

“Yeah?” Erwin looks up again. Levi thinks that his eyes are wet.

“Yeah, I’ll do it. I should. I have to,” he says, getting quieter with every word.

Erwin smiles, so faintly that it’s hardly noticeable— but Levi sees. He feels something stir in his chest.

“Okay,” Erwin says, “Give me a sec. They’ll call you back in a bit.”

 

One thing in particular that Levi did not realize before coming in was the way in which they’d go about this test. That is, it didn’t at all occur to him that he’d be getting blood drawn.

The sight of the needle makes him dizzy. For a brief instance he almost considers leaving again, but he doesn’t. Yet the mere act of taking off his jacket is a wildly uncomfortable process.

Everything in the room is cold, white, and steril. The lights overhead emit an insect-like buzz. There are medical posters on the wall, some sort of information graphics on sexually transmitted diseases. Levi averts his eyes and stares intently at the eerily clean tile.

His body becomes ridiculously tense when the lab technician touches him. He refuses to even so much glance at the needle when it pierces his skin. Sure he’s no stranger to pain, or blood, for that matter, but something about watching it flow through a thin coil of plastic, watching it drip into a vial, he absolutely despises it. He thinks to himself that it’s unnatural.

It takes time. The technician makes some offhand remark about Levi not drinking enough water, but Levi barely even rolls his eyes.

When he stands up, the whole world vanishes for a moment. The ground seems to sway beneath his feet. His head feels like it’s full of water, his limbs strangely fatigued. He blinks once or twice and his vision returns in a slow, gooey haze. He ignores it.

When he wanders back to the lobby, pulling his jacket on over his shoulders, he notices Erwin turn back to look at him. His expression turns from expectant to concerned.

“Jeez, you okay?” he asks.

Levi, feeling like he could sleep for thirty years, drawls, “yeah, I’m just kinda out of it, is all. I don’t know.”

“You wanna sit down?”

“No, I’m fine, honestly,” he says, stepping forward, becoming dizzy again and leaning against the side of the counter. “I just. Need a minute. Yeah.” If he wasn’t so woozy, he’d be pissed at himself for acting like this. The thought of him being pitied swims through his brain, but it fades too quickly for him to feel anything about it.

“They usually don’t take very much blood,” Erwin says, standing up. He comes out from behind the desk, placing his hands on Levi’s shoulders, gently, leading him backwards to sit in one of the waiting chairs. “This doesn’t usually happen to people, you know. Usually girls with anemia and stuff like that. When was the last time you ate or drank anything?”

Levi considers resisting but doesn’t care enough to do so. He slouches, closing and opening his eyes slowly. “This morning,” he admits.

“And that’s why you feel like shit.”

“Whatever, mom,” Levi replies, a playful snark in his tone that not even he anticipated.

Erwin snorts, a faint smile on his lips, whose image won’t leave Levi’s mind no matter how brief the instance was. Erwin disappears behind the office somewhere and emerges with a plastic cup of water and something in his hand that Levi can’t see. He tosses it— in Levi’s lap lands a bright red lollipop, shrinkwrapped in plastic.

“What the fuck is this?” Levi asks.

“What does it look like?” Erwin hands him the water.

“What am I, five?”

“No,” he says, sitting down next to him, “but your blood sugar’s extremely low right now.”

Levi gives him a look that lands somewhere between “ _ you are the  _ worst _ person i know” _ and “ _ really?” _

“Take it or leave it,” Erwin says nonchalantly.

With the stubbornness and conviction of a five year old, Levi picks it up, tears the plastic off and shoves it into his mouth. Erwin is trying and failing to hide a smirk.

“You’re trying not to laugh at me again,” Levi points out through a barrier of cherry candy.

“Sorry, I’ve just never seen someone eat a lollipop so angrily,” he snickers.

Levi rolls his eyes, though not entirely annoyed. He doesn’t mind it, though he doesn’t know why. He chalks it up to his low blood sugar.

A vicious thunderclap rumbles through the sky outside, and the rain begins to pour even harder than it had that afternoon. Both their heads turn toward the door. The sky had become exceptionally dark for the time of day.

“Shit,” Levi mutters to himself.

“What?”

“I’ve gotta ride home in that.”

“Y’can wait here for a little if you want. It doesn’t really matter.”

They’re both quiet for a while. Erwin leans back, crossing his arms, ankle resting on the top of his knee. Levi notices Erwin’s eyes on him— he’s staring, subtly, from the side, gaze fixed on Levi’s mouth. Levi bites into the lollipop, cracking it loudly against his teeth. Erwin glances away.

It tastes like someone else’s childhood. For an instant, Levi is hyper aware of the inside of his mouth: his tongue, his saliva, red and wet and saccharine, teeth gritty with sugar. It’s syrupy, not quite bloodlike. But Levi thinks about blood. Blood in his arms, blood on his face, blood inside needles and tubes and IV bags. Poisoned blood, streaming like a polluted river through his veins. Through his mother’s veins.   


He takes a sip of water.

“Feel better?” Erwin asks.

Levi nods. “Kinda, yeah.” There’s something cold and hollow in his tone.

“I’m, uh, not gonna tell you to not worry about it,” Erwin starts, “But you gotta remember that there  _ is _ still a chance that you’re clean. And if you aren’t, there’s things that can help.”

Levi turns his face to look at him, eyes more tired and sunken in than usual. He realizes now: he’s too tired, too sad, too afraid to be angry. “Don’t lie,” he says.

“I’m not lying.”

“But you  _ are _ ,” Levi says, “because I know that you  _ know. _ You know how the drugs make a person, don’t you? That they actually make them worse? Don’t tell me that you don’t. You’ve seen.”

Erwin is ashamedly silent.  “Yeah. You’re right,” he finally murmurs, softly, sadly.

Levi doesn’t respond.

“It’s just, kind of what I’m supposed to say to people. It’s what we all have to believe,” Erwin continues.

“You can’t tell me you believe it, though.”

Erwin shifts in his seat.“I _try_ ," he says, "I want to. But every time I start to, someone else dies and it gives me a reason not to again,” he adds gravely.

Levi is surprised at how dark Erwin is capable of being. “Jesus,” he mutters under his breath.

“Oh. Sorry. That was kinda fucked up.”

He shrugs. “You think  _ I _ give a shit? I’m the one with the death sentence. The fact that this whole damn place even has to exist is fucked up.”

A sudden flash of lightning illuminates the whole lobby, its bright, angelic light reflecting off Erwin’s fire-blue irises for less than a second. Levi hadn’t realized how dim it was before. 

“You’re not wrong about that,” Erwin replies.

Levi is staring at him now. Erwin doesn’t notice; he’s looking down at his shoelace. When he looks up, Levi glances down at his hands.

“But you are wrong about one thing. You don’t have a death sentence.”

“I might.”

“Not for sure. Not yet.”

Levi’s eyes are still locked on his hands. They’re still.

“I guess so,” he says. “God, why are you so fucking positive? What are you?”

Erwin, of course, giggles at this.

And Levi almost,  _ almost _ smiles.

“Well, for one, it’s sorta my job,” he answers, “dying people don’t really like to be reminded that they're dying. Or at least, it’s just kinda cruel to be a downer like that. If your life already sucks, you wouldn’t want some asshole around making you feel even worse about it, right?”

“Sure, whatever, but you’re not working all the time.”

“I guess so. But I think that most people have something about their life that sucks.”

Levi sneers. “God, you’re not human. I feel like if I look at you from a really specific angle, I’ll get to see your halo.”

Erwin laughs out loud, leaning forward, flashing his blindingly white teeth. Levi swallows dryly.

“I know you didn’t really mean for that to be funny, but it was,” Erwin smiles.

“You are fucking impervious,” Levi tells him.

But Erwin only smiles wider, as if he knows it would get under Levi’s skin.

Levi doesn’t say anything, turning away and facing forward. He leans back in his chair.

The rain outside is a crowd of indistinct, disembodied voices, like a chorus of ghosts. Levi wonders if he’ll get home relatively soon, if he’ll get home without being absolutely drenched.

But—and the thought comes to him slyly, like a thief sneaking in through a window— maybe waiting here isn’t so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please comment my family is dying
> 
> thank you for your support this fic is my gay lifeblood and im so glad youre all experiencing it with me


	7. We Belong Together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI IM SO SO SO SO SORRY I KNOW ITS BEEN LIKE FOUR MONTHS INSTEAD OF TWO IM CHRONICALLY ILL AND VERY BUSY OK THERES PROBABLY A TON OF MISTAKES IN THIS BC IM UPLOADING AT LIKE 1:30AM BUT WHATEVER HERES YOUR GAYS BYE

“What do you mean  _ three weeks?”  _ Levi whispers sharply, under his breath, glance cast aside at Erwin as their chemistry teacher rambles on at the front of the classroom.

“I don’t know! That’s just how long they take,” Erwin whispers back.

“I could be dead in three weeks. So much for getting tested,” Levi rolls his eyes, monotone.

“You’re not going to die within the next three weeks,” Erwin says.

“I know, jackass, I was joking.”

“Oh, my bad, sorry I don’t understand the full extent of your comedic genius. Death is hilarious,” he mutters sarcastically.

“I would have thought you’d be cultured enough to understand,” Levi smirks.

It catches Erwin off guard. For an instant, the image of Levi with a lollipop in his mouth appears in his mind—he remembers how he stared for just a little too long, how Levi really  _ saw  _ him… He feels his cheeks get hot, and he quickly pushes the memory away, glancing down at his desk.

Still, the memory of that night floats through his brain like milk and tea. While he knows that he probably shouldn’t have offered to do all of those things, he doesn’t regret any of it.

He remembers Levi’s eyes. It must have been the first time, Erwin realizes, that he could see directly into them. He feels almost as if he saw something he wasn’t supposed to; that it would kill Levi if he knew how much Erwin could see.

It was as if there was everything all at once. Pain, anger, fear, and unimaginable, inconsolable sadness. But now, now it’s all he  _ can _ see when he looks at Levi. At first Erwin doesn’t understand how it goes so unnoticed to everyone else—but it occurs to him: that’s how Levi wants it.

“Why are you making that face?” Levi asks.

Erwin looks up again, remembering where he is. “What? I wasn’t making a face.”

“Yeah, you were,” he says, “You looked like you were in pain.”

Erwin presses his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oh.”

The bell rings, and Levi stands up as quick as he always does, but not before Erwin catches the brief “ _ See ya” _ he murmurs under his breath. Erwin smiles.

He blinks—and it’s after school.

“Dad says there’s gonna be another heat wave. One last one before summer kicks it.”

“You’re kidding. It was freezing and pouring buckets just over the weekend.”

“I’m not.”

“That blows. I was excited.”

“I hate the cold. I want it to stay as warm as possible. I don’t want to have to stop wearing my jellies.”

Ewin stares down at the yellowing grass as Mike and Nanaba ramble back and forth about what he thinks is, quote,  _ “the most benign shit in the world”. _

He’s not necessarily annoyed with them, by any means. Yet every day it feels like he’s got less and less to say. In the past week it had become exceptionally hard to be friends with them; not in a negative way, but in the way that he’s always got something so serious on his mind. He supposes that’s why he didn’t have many friends before he moved, though.

He  _ could _ talk about the weather, if he really wanted to. But he’s tired.

They’re sitting under a big oak tree, textbooks and lined paper and pencils stacked in their laps and strewn across the grass, which is drying out with the transition of the season. The breeze rustles the leaves above their heads, they’re just barely beginning to turn. One falls between the pages of Nana’s calculus book, and, pulling it out with two fingers, she releases it into the air. It scatters and lands somewhere in the grass two feet away.

“What math are you in again?”

“Algebra II.”

“So you...don’t know improper integrals? I’m guessing?”

“Hah. Hell no.”

Erwin’s gaze lands on the back entrance of the school, just across the parking lot. He can see Levi and Hange sitting on the curb.

“Do you know, Erwin?” Nanaba asks him.

“Not really,” he answers, absentmindedly. Levi takes a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, offers one to Hange, who declines. He lights one and brings his knees to his chest.

“Aren’t you in BC?”

“I guess so.”

He can see them talking, but they’re too far away to hear. Levi runs his fingers through his hair, Hange rolls their eyes, pressing their glasses up the bridge of their nose.

“What are you staring at?”

Erwin turns to look at Nanaba, “nothing,” he lies. “Let me see the problem you’re working on?”

“Who is that?” she asks,  squinting, straining to see across the parking lot. “I can’t tell.”

“Maybe you should wear your glasses, Nan,” Mike chimes in. “It’s Levi.”

“I don’t  _ need— _ ”

“Did you want help with that problem?” Erwin interrupts.

Mike and Nanaba glance back at him, both about to speak, but they hear a voice call out from across the field—

“Hey! Erwin!”

—It’s Hange. They’re waving enthusiastically, leaning against Moblit’s shoulder, who had come outside in the brief moment Erwin’s attention was diverted. Moblit waves too, although less erratically. The two of them are smiling. Levi, on the other hand, has his hands shoved in his pockets, cigarette still in his mouth, eyes locked on the ground off to the side.

Erwin waves back.

Hange turns, pulling Moblit along, Levi follows. But—for a moment, he stops, looking over his shoulder. Taking his cigarette out of his mouth, his eyes meet Erwin’s, and Erwin can’t tell if he’s being deliberate or not. He straightens his back suddenly, swallows dryly. Nanaba mutters something under her breath, but Erwin doesn’t hear her. Levi taps the ash off his cigarette onto the pavement. Erwin, still staring, wonders what he’s thinking.

But Hange says Levi’s name, and he blinks, breaking eye contact and disappearing behind a corner.

“What the hell?” Mike says.   


“What? What happened?” Nanaba whines. “This isn’t fair.”

“Nothing,” Erwin mutters, closing his textbook.

“No, that was  _ creepy, _ ” Mike replies.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He was looking right at you.”

“He was?!” Nanaba exclaims.

“No, he wasn’t.” Erwin stands, collecting his books, only a little bit annoyed.

“He still plotting your death?” asks Mike. “Hey, where you going?”

Erwin presses his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Home. Where else?”

 

...And, well, he does go home, but not for long. His shift today starts at five.

Work proves to be unimpressive and uneventful, which Erwin supposes is a good thing. He spends his time brooding over an issue of  _ Captain America _ and thinking about Levi, which, as it turns out, is a lot more difficult to stop doing than Erwin would like to admit.

The sky is a greying periwinkle, a strip of radiant orange sitting over the horizon. Elbow on the edge of his desk, cheek smooshed against his hand, he stares out of the window with an uncharacteristically bitter expression.

“ _ I wonder…”  _ he thinks.

He shakes his head.  _ “Quit it,” _

“ _ Oh, except…” _

He grits his teeth, dropping his head, eyes falling on the comic book print ad on his desk: REAL! X-RAY GLASSES! SEE  _ THROUGH  _ CLOTHES!

He sneers.

Five o’clock sends Ewin wandering out of the parking lot to the dirt road that runs through this part of town. Hands in his pockets, he stares down towards the west where the tiny, soft grey outline of a grocery store sits. A breeze sends a chill though his body. He squints into the distance for a short while, not thinking of anything particular until he realizes—an excuse, that’s what he was looking for.

Well, he doesn’t find one, but he climbs into his truck and heads the wrong direction anyways. He calls himself stupid in his head the entire time it takes to get there. Sitting in the parking lot of where Levi works, Erwin debates with whether or not he should leave, or go inside like he had so rashly decided to do not three minutes ago. Peering over his dashboard, he tries to get a look inside, but doesn’t see Levi.

“Jesus, who am I kidding?” he mutters to himself as he opens his door.

Inside the store, Pat Benetar’s  _ We Belong Together _ is playing so loud over the speaker system that it takes Erwin aback. He nearly smiles at the strangeness of it, “ _ well, okay I suppose,”  _ he thinks. Following this brief moment of confusion, he looks to the empty register, and decides to meander around the aisles. Now that he’s here, a part of him hopes that Levi isn’t.

But oh, he is, very much so, and he’s mopping the floor by the refrigerated section, completely unaware of the impending encounter. That being the case, he’s more dancing with his mop rather than using it for its intended purpose.

So in the split second the two make eye contact as Erwin rounds the corner, Levi , halfway between a pirouette, loses all concentration and falls flat on his ass.

Erwin opens his mouth, stuck between laughing and asking if Levi is okay. He doesn’t have time to do either before Levi scrambles to his feet, livid.

“What are you DOING HERE?” He yells in an unusually high-pitched, effeminate crescendo. “Are you  _ stalking  _ me?!”

“Er—what? No, I just, wanted to see how you were doing,” Erwin replies.

Levi glares at him with a fiery scowl for an uncomfortable amount of time. Erwin tugs on the collar of his shirt. The radio is still blasting, comically loud.

“...How I was doing?” Levi repeats, tone suspicious.

Erwin swallows dryly. “Uh...yeah?”

“Why?”

He doesn’t know how to answer. “You know, cause—you know! This kind of thing is, like, stressful,” Erwin stammers.

Levi casts a side glance at him before picking his mop up off the floor. “I was born stressed,” he says flatly. He drops his mop into the mop bucket, turning it and rolling it in the opposite direction.

Erwin follows him, obviously. Levi rolls his eyes. “Don’t you have anything better to do?” He asks as they approach a dingy white door labeled  _ employees only. _ He fishes a set of keys out of his pocket, jamming one into the lock and opening it.

Erwin grits his teeth. “I, um, well—“ he watches Levi dump the mop bucket down a drain in the corner, kicking it against the wall. He pulls his apron over his head, leaving a section of his hair sticking up.

“Well, I don’t know, I thought maybe you’d wanna hang out,” Erwin blurts.

In the same instance, Levi switches the PA radio off, leaving them in a deafening, awkward silence.

Erwin’s kicking himself in his head. Why, oh, god, why did he say that? Who even makes that kind of suggestion? How on Earth would anyone perceive that as a normal thing to say? Oh, shit, he really does think he’s a stalker. Fuck. Everything is rui—

“Oh. Well, I guess so,” Levi shrugs.

Erwin blinks, suddenly back in reality. “Wait, what?”

“I don’t really feel like going home.”

There is a brief pause. “Er, seriously?” Erwin asks, more perplexed than nervous now.

Levi brushes past him. “I mean, know that I don’t really like you, but this just means I get to make fun of you for an hour. So it’s your own doing.”

Erwin, being the person that he is, cracks a wide smile.

Levi doesn’t say anything in response, but his lips curl to form a subtle grimace.

“What do you wanna do?” asks Erwin.

Levi shrugs, “dunno.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Not really. You drink?”

Erwin nearly gasps at the suggestion. “No, that’s...”

Levi turns to look at him, blank-eyed.

“...Well I’ve done it before, just, uh, not often,” he lies.

“Yeah, okay,” Levi scoffs.

Erwin shifts awkwardly. They stand still in front of the door, Levi shoves his hands in his pockets. Erwin tries to make eye contact, but Levi seems so be looking past him; his eyes are tired, partially vacant, glancing sideways every moment or so.

“We could go to the 24-hour Water&Ice,” Erwin suggests.

“For what?” Levi replies, still seemingly uninterested.

“They’ve got ice cream.”

Levi locks eyes with him. “Hm. You buy,” he says, pushing the door open and sauntering out ahead. Erwin scurries behind him, smiling faintly, pleasantly surprised regardless of his new friend’s strange attitude.

Levi kicks his feet up onto the dashboard, which Erwin isn’t exactly pleased with. He chooses not to say anything. Levi begins to fiddle with the radio without asking.

“Oh, um, it doesn’t work very well in this area.” Erwin says, looking aside briefly, hands unconsciously tightening on the steering wheel.

But Levi tunes into a channel, though it sounds a bit crackly. He leans back in his seat, and Erwin swears he feels an air of smugness surrounding him.

“Well it’s not great sounding,” Erwin murmurs under his breath. He watches Levi from the corner of his eye.

Levi reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out a box of cigarettes. Erwin tenses up. He watches Levi pull one out and place it between his teeth, glancing over at him silently. Erwin swallows, eyes on the road, though arguably paying more attention to Levi.

Levi waits. He reaches for his lighter, staring at Erwin, fidgeting with it between his fingers. When he sparks it, Erwin opens his mouth to speak—but closes it immediately. Levi sits with the flame close to his face, unmoving.

Erwin grits his teeth, Levi’s gaze burning a hole in the side of his head.

Levi slowly lights his cigarette. When he exhales, a hot, gritty cloud of smoke permeates the front seat of the truck. Erwin holds his breath for a moment, but gags when he finally breathes in.

“Can you, um, roll down your window?” he stifles between coughs.

And Levi does, and holds his cigarette outside to burn out in the wind. “Don’t you have asthma?”

In a move that surprises both of them, Erwin slams on his brakes, sending Levi sliding forward into the space between his seat and the dashboard.

“You  _ knew  _ I had  _ asthma?! _ ” he exclaims. “Why would you do that? I could have suffocated, you know, not to mention those things give you cancer,” he whines.

Levi grumbles as he hoists himself back into his place. “Ow.”

“And  _ that’s  _ what you get for not wearing a seatbelt,” Erwin adds.

“Whatever,” Levi rolls his eyes, “I was waiting for you to stop me.”

“Excuse me?”

“You knew what I was doing, but you didn’t tell me to stop.”

Erwin stammers, offended. “I was being polite,” he says.

“No you weren’t.”

Erwin narrows his eyes, choosing his next words carefully.

But Levi smirks. And all Erwin can do is look forward again, lifting his foot off the break.

A minute passes and Levi says, “fine, sorry, that wasn’t cool of me.”

Erwin bites his tongue. “I guess I probably should have said something.”

“Yeah, probably,” Levi answers. 

They pull into a dimly lit parking lot. In the store, the fluorescent lights seem to darken Levi’s sunken features, even sting Erwin’s eyes. The buzz of the lights reminds them both of the clinic. The pair spend a moment mesmerized by a wall of generic candies; a tempting prospect, but candy isn’t what they came here for.

“I don’t think I’ve had sweets in years,” Levi thinks aloud, unintentionally, gaze fixed on a bag of caramels.

“What?” Erwin nearly shouts, immediately wincing at his own volume. “Seriously?” he whispers.

Levi glances downward. “No, I play sports,” he says quietly, vaguely annoyed. “And I’m not a child.”

“Whatever dude,” Erwin grins, “sometimes kids have good taste.”

Levi doesn’t know how to reply. He becomes aware of the female cashier reading a magazine behind the counter.

“What flavor do you want?” Erwin asks.

“What? Oh. Whatever you get I guess.”

 

Picture this: two teenage boys sitting on the hood of a rusty orange pickup truck, in the middle of the night, eating vanilla ice cream. One of them has sprinkles.

The boy with sprinkles asks the other, “ _ do you want to talk about it?” _

And he answers, “ _ no, not really.” _

There is a pause.

And softly, strangely, he adds,  _ “but thanks.” _

Neither will look at the other directly, but they both sit attentive nonetheless.

 

The ride back to the grocery store is quieter than the one away from it, but the atmosphere is more relaxed: Erwin isn’t anxiously rigid, and he thinks a few extra calories might have mellowed Levi out. Though, he doesn't give Erwin much of a goodbye when he leaves—he nods and demonstrates his inconsistent ability to make eye contact. But Erwin accepts it, perhaps even appreciates it for what it is. He simply refuses to mind.

 

_ /// _

 

_ That smile,  _ Erwin thinks.

Wet haired, body flat against his bed, eyelids drooping. He gazes out of his window for the last moments he is awake.

Erwin is utterly perplexed by it.

Well, sure, maybe it meant nothing, and maybe Levi just gets his kicks from making fun of other people. That wouldn’t be surprising. But its suddenness caught Erwin off guard. He remembers, falling asleep, that once he’d wondered if smiling caused Levi physical pain. The thought is amusing now.

It was so brief, but it was  _ there, _ like an eclipse or the passing of a comet: blink and you'll miss it, but keep your eyes open and you'll catch a real and vivid glimpse of the universe. 

Yes,  _ yes, _ that’s how it always is. For a moment, the universe doesn't seem so vast and dark and mysterious, for a moment you understand, and for a moment you thank your stars that you got to witness such thing at all. Maybe, you think, you don't know what goes on above your head because you aren't supposed to know. Maybe it doesn't want you to know. But when you see something astronomical? When the sky opens up and the unknown becomes vulnerable? You are so lucky.

Oh, God.

He’s beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls comment or come to my apartment to force me to update this fic my address is 9[REDACTED]  
> love u guys thx 4 reading, pls comment, bye


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